The structure of the merging RCS 231953+00 supercluster at z ~ 0.9

Abstract

The RCS2319+00 supercluster is a massive supercluster at z = 0.9 comprising three optically selected, spectroscopically confirmed clusters separated by <3Mpc on the plane of the sky. This supercluster is one of a few known examples of the progenitors of present-day massive clusters (1015 M ☉ by z ~ 0.5). We present an extensive spectroscopic campaign carried out on the supercluster field resulting, in conjunction with previously published data, in 1961 high-confidence galaxy redshifts. We find 302 structure members spanning three distinct redshift walls separated from one another by ~65Mpc (Δ z = 0.03). The component clusters have spectroscopic redshifts of 0.901, 0.905, and 0.905. The velocity dispersions are consistent with those predicted from X-ray data, giving estimated cluster masses of ~10 14.5-10 14.9 M ☉. The Dressler-Shectman test finds evidence of substructure in the supercluster field and a friends-of-friends analysis identified five groups in the supercluster, including a filamentary structure stretching between two cluster cores previously identified in the infrared by Coppin etal. The galaxy colors further show this filamentary structure to be a unique region of activity within the supercluster, comprised mainly of blue galaxies compared to the ~43%-77% red-sequence galaxies present in the other groups and cluster cores. Richness estimates from stacked luminosity function fits result in average group mass estimates consistent with ~1013 M ☉ halos. Currently, 22% of our confirmed members reside in 1013 M ☉ groups/clusters destined to merge onto the most massive cluster, in agreement with the massive halo galaxy fractions important in cluster galaxy pre-processing in N-body simulation merger tree studies