Joint, parameter-free reconstruction of the mass distribution in galaxy clusters from all available data sets

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Matthias Bartelmann
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: from 2013 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 241898342

Being the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe, galaxyclusters play an important role for our attempts at understanding cosmic structure formation. Furthermore, their internal structure allows to constrain some of the properties of the Dark Matter. The project proposed here intends to obtain joint reconstructions of the matter distribution ingalaxy clusters from data of the strong and weak gravitational lensing effects, the X-ray emission, the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect and the kinematics of cluster galaxies, applying as little prejudice as possible.The project will be based on an existing algorithm allowing to jointly analyse data from the strong and weak gravitational lensing effects on an adaptive grid. The additional observables will be related to the gravitational potential of the galaxy clusters by physical models and regularised deprojection. The gravitational potential can then be projected and combined with the gravitational lensing effects. The respective substantial extension of our algorithm, the development of suitable physical models and the relaxation of restricting symmetry and stability assumptions to the largest feasible extent are substantial goals of the proposed research. When completed, an essentially parameter-free, adaptive algorithm will be provided which combines all types of observational data from galaxy clusters in joint reconstructions of their mass distribution.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants