A submm survey of high-redshift galaxy clusters: a submm Butcher-Oemler effect?

Abstract

We present the initial results of a deep submillimeter survey of ten galaxy clusters with the SCUBA bolometer array on the JCMT. Recently, an excess number of dust enshrouded starbursts in high-redshift galaxy cluster fields was reported (Best 2002) and has been interpreted as increased star-formation within young clusters. An alternative explanation is that these starbursts are background objects behind clusters with enhanced lensing cross-sections, over that predicted from simple lensing models, so-called “super-lenses” seen in recent optical cluster surveys. To investigate this issue, we are studying a set of clusters which show strong optical arcs (super-lenses) and a set of clusters of equal redshift and richness but which are not super-lenses. The preliminary results, based on 50% of the sample, tentatively suggest that, while the dusty starbursts are limited to the super-lensing cluster fields, they are not background objects but lie within the clusters themselves. Cluster-cluster merging offers a means of increasing both the lensing cross-section, thereby accounting for the multiple strong optical arcs, and increasing the star formation within the clusters through galaxy interactions.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html