The Westerbork Survey of Rich Clusters of Galaxies

Abstract

In the Westerbork Survey of Rich Clusters of galaxies (WSRC), seven nearby and rich clusters of galaxies have been observed with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope. The results obtained at different frequencies are published in several papers of a series, and Table 1 serves as a general reference to these publications. In these papers, both discussions on individual radio sources and the presentation of cluster radio luminosity functions (RLF) are given. Here we summarize some of the results of the WSRC which, from a statistical point of view, impose some constraints on the rate of the radio activity of galaxies and on the influence of the galaxy environments on their activity. The rate of radio activity of a sample of galaxies in a cluster can be described by the integral RLF of the cluster, which represents the fraction of galaxies that emit in the radio domain above a certain power. When it is presented as a function of the optical luminosities of the cluster galaxies, it is called the bivariate radio luminosity function (BRLF). The BRLFs are most suitable for representing in an unbiased way the rate of activity of a sample of galaxies, since they are presented in absolute parameters and are normalized to the optical luminosity function (or distribution) of the galaxy samples. This is important since, both inside and outside clusters, it has been shown that the RLF depends strongly on the optical luminosities.