# The large–scale distribution of galaxies in the Shapley Concentration

## 1 Introduction

The Shapley Concentration stands out as the richest system of Abell clusters in the list of Zucca et al. (1993), at every density excess. In particular, at a density contrast of $`2`$, it has 25 members (at mean velocity $`14000`$ km/s), while at the same density contrast the Great Attractor, which is the largest mass condensation within $`80`$ h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc, has only 6 members and the Corona Borealis and Hercules superclusters are formed by 10 and 8 clusters, respectively. While the cluster distribution in the Shapley Concentration has been well studied, little is known about the distribution of the galaxies. Determining the properties of these galaxies is very important in order to assess the physical reality and extension of the structure and to determine if galaxies and clusters trace the matter distribution in the same way.

## 2 The survey

With the use of the OPTOPUS and MEFOS multifibre spectrographs at the 3.6m ESO telescope we performed a redshift survey of galaxies in the two cluster complexes (dominated by A3528 and A3558; Bardelli et al. 1994, 1998a, 1998b) at the center of the supercluster and of galaxies between clusters (the inter–cluster galaxies; Bardelli et al. 1999). The sampled area is contained in the UKSTJ plates 443, 444 and 509, corresponding to a scale of $`25`$ h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc at the distance of the Shapley Concentration, and our total sample contains 2057 velocities. In Fig.1 we show the observing strategy for the inter–cluster galaxies survey in plates 443 and 444, while in Fig.2 we report the wedge diagrams of the galaxy distribution. In the upper panel of Fig.2, it is clear the presence of the two cluster complexes dominated by A3558 (on the left) and by A3528 (on the right). These two structures appear to be connected by a bridge of galaxies, resembling the Coma-A1367 system in the central part of the Great Wall. The scale of this system is $`23`$ h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc and it is similar to that of Coma-A1367 ($`21`$ h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc). Note also the presence of two voids at $`20000`$ km/s and $`30000`$ km/s in the easternmost half of the wedge. Other two voids are visible in the westernmost part of the sample, delimiting two filamentary structures at $`30000`$ km/s and $`45000`$ km/s, which connect each other at right ascension of $`13^h`$.

Knowing the incompleteness of the sample and using the luminosity function of field galaxies (from the ESP survey, Zucca et al. 1997), it is possible to reconstruct the density profile. In Fig.3 the histogram and the density profile of the 512 inter–cluster galaxies are shown. In the lower panel it appears clearly the presence of the large overdensity at $`v=30000`$ km/s. Note however that in this plot the Shapley Concentration is not fully represented, lacking the large contribution of cluster galaxies. The same analysis has been done for the cluster complexes surveys and then the total density excess has been calculated.

The total overdensity in galaxies of this supercluster is $`7.67\pm 1.91`$ on a scale of $`11`$ h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc of radius, corresponding to a mass of $`1.3\times 10^{16}`$ h<sup>-1</sup> $`M_{}`$ if light traces mass and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$. If the light is more clustered than the mass and considering reasonable bias factors in the range $`[1.42.5]`$ (Hudson 1993), we find that the mass could lie in the range $`[2.734.62]\times 10^{15}`$ h<sup>-1</sup> $`M_{}`$.

If light traces mass and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$, the Shapley Concentration already stopped its expansion due to the Hubble flow and started to grow. Moreover, the central cluster complexes result to be in the collapse phase. The predicted peculiar velocities inside the Shapley Concentration are $`1500`$ km/s in the light–traces–mass case or in the range $`[500960]`$ km/s in the case of biased galaxy formation.

For what concerns the structure at $`30000`$ km/s, its estimated overdensity is $`3.12`$ on scales of $`25`$ h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc, corresponding to a mass of $`5.96\times 10^{16}`$ h<sup>-1</sup> $`M_{}`$ if the light is an unbiased tracer of the underlying mass.