Precision Measurements of the Cluster Red Sequence using an Error Corrected Gaussian Mixture Model

Abstract

The red sequence is an important feature of galaxy clusters and plays a crucial role in optical cluster detection. Measurement of the slope and scatter of the red sequence are affected both by selection of red sequence galaxies and measurement errors. In this paper, we describe a new error corrected Gaussian Mixture Model for red sequence galaxy identification. Using this technique, we can remove the effects of measurement error and extract unbiased information about the intrinsic properties of the red sequence. We use this method to select red sequence galaxies in each of the 13,823 clusters in the maxBCG catalog, and measure the red sequence ridgeline location and scatter of each. These measurements provide precise constraints on the variation of the average red galaxy populations in the observed frame with redshift. We find that the scatter of the red sequence ridgeline increases mildly with redshift, and that the slope decreases with redshift. We also observe that the slope does not strongly depend on cluster richness. Using similar methods, we show that this behavior is mirrored in a spectroscopic sample of field galaxies, further emphasizing that ridgeline properties are independent of environment.

33 pages, 14 Figures; A typo in Eq.A11 is fixed. The C++/Python codes for ECGMM can be downloaded from: https://sites.google.com/site/jiangangecgmm/

References in corpus (15)

• The 2.5 m Telescope of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• A MaxBCG Catalog of 13,823 Galaxy Clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Stellar Population Diagnostics of Elliptical Galaxy Formation
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Monitor Telescope Pipeline
• MaxBCG: A Red Sequence Galaxy Cluster Finder
• The DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey: Color and Luminosity Dependence of Galaxy Clustering at z~1
• The build-up of the colour-magnitude relation in galaxy clusters since z~0.8
• Evolution of the Color-Magnitude Relation in Galaxy Clusters at z ~1 from the ACS Intermediate Redshift Cluster Survey
• The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO survey: Evolution of the Luminosity Function of Luminous Red Galaxies to z=0.6
• Cosmological Constraints from the Red-Sequence Cluster Survey
• Clusters at Half Hubble Time: Galaxy Structure and Colors in RXJ0152.7-1357 and MS1054-03
• The Mean and Scatter of the Velocity Dispersion-Optical Richness Relation for maxBCG Galaxy Clusters
• The VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey. Color bimodality and the mix of galaxy populations up to z~2
• Evolution of the Color-Magnitude relation in High-Redshift Clusters: Early-type Galaxies in the Lynx Supercluster at z~1.26
• The evolution of the red sequence slope in massive galaxy clusters

Cited by in corpus (40)

• redMaPPer I: Algorithm and SDSS DR8 Catalog
• The redMaPPer Galaxy Cluster Catalog From DES Science Verification Data
• A GMBCG Galaxy Cluster Catalog of 55,424 Rich Clusters from SDSS DR7
• Robust Optical Richness Estimation with Reduced Scatter
• A cluster finding algorithm based on the multiband identification of red sequence galaxies
• redMaPPer IV: Photometric Membership Identification of Cluster Galaxies with 1% Precision
• Constraints on the Alignment of Galaxies in Galaxy Clusters from $\sim$14,000 Spectroscopic Members
• Cross-correlation Weak Lensing of SDSS Galaxy Clusters III: Mass-to-light Ratios
• Curvature in the color-magnitude relation but not in color-sigma: Major dry mergers at M* > 2 x 10^11 Msun?
• Galaxy Cluster Mass Estimation from Stacked Spectroscopic Analysis
• Miscentring in Galaxy Clusters: Dark Matter to Brightest Cluster Galaxy Offsets in 10,000 SDSS Clusters
• Orientation Bias of Optically Selected Galaxy Clusters and Its Impact on Stacked Weak Lensing Analyses
• The Universal Einstein Radius Distribution from 10,000 SDSS Clusters
• Intrinsic Alignment of Cluster Galaxies: the Redshift Evolution
• Properties of Dark Matter Haloes and their Correlations: the Lesson from Principal Component Analysis
• The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS). XXIV. The Red Sequence to $\sim$10${}^6$ L${}_{\odot }$ and Comparisons with Galaxy Formation Models
• Stellar mass as a galaxy cluster mass proxy: application to the Dark Energy Survey redMaPPer clusters
• Extrinsic Sources of Scatter in the Richness-Mass Relation of Galaxy Clusters
• The galaxy-subhalo connection in low-redshift galaxy clusters from weak gravitational lensing
• Searching for galaxy clusters in the Kilo-Degree Survey
• The Sloan Bright Arcs Survey : Discovery of Seven New Strongly Lensed Galaxies from z=0.66-2.94
• Galaxy Populations in the 26 most massive Galaxy Clusters in the South Pole Telescope SZE Survey
• First results on the cluster galaxy population from the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam survey. II. Faint end color-magnitude diagrams and radial profiles of red and blue galaxies at $0.1<z<1.1$
• ORCA: The Overdense Red-sequence Cluster Algorithm
• Crowded Field Galaxy Photometry: Precision Colors in the CLASH Clusters
• IQ-Collaboratory 1.1: the Star-Forming Sequence of Simulated Central Galaxies
• Membership lists for 431 open clusters in Gaia DR2 using extreme deconvolution gaussian mixture models
• Luminous red galaxies in the Kilo Degree Survey: selection with broad-band photometry and weak lensing measurements
• A New Approach to Identifying the Most Powerful Gravitational Lensing Telescopes
• A Multi-Wavelength Mass Analysis of RCS2 J232727.6-020437, a ~3x10${}^{15}$M${}_{\odot }$ Galaxy Cluster at z=0.7
• Probing of the Interactions Between the Hot Plasmas and Galaxies in Clusters from z=0.1 to 0.9
• Clustering of red-sequence galaxies in the fourth data release ofthe Kilo-Degree Survey
• Constraining Cosmological Parameters using the Cluster Mass-Richness Relation
• Peering Into the Extended X-ray Emission on Megaparsec Scale in 3C 187
• COSMOS-Web galaxy groups: Evolution of red sequence and quiescent galaxy fraction
• Red Dragon: A Redshift-Evolving Gaussian Mixture Model for Galaxies
• The Galactic Center in Color: Measuring Extinction with High-Proper-Motion Stars
• Characterising the optical properties of galaxy clusters with GMPhoRCC
• Cosmic Dragons: A Two-Component Mixture Model of COSMOS Galaxies
• The Integrated Cluster Finder for the ARCHES project