# The Bright SHARC Survey: The X–ray Cluster Luminosity Function 1footnote 11footnote 1Based on data obtained at the Kitt Peak National Observatory, European Southern Observatory, the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope and Apache Point Observatory

## 1 Introduction

The observed evolution of the space density of clusters of galaxies provides a powerful constraint on the underlying cosmological model. Many authors have demonstrated – both analytically and numerically – that the expected abundance of clusters, as a function of cosmic epoch, is a sensitive test of the mean mass density of the universe ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$) and the type of dark matter (Press & Schechter 1974; Lacey & Cole 1993, 1994; Oukbir & Blanchard 1992, 1997; Henry 1997; Eke et al. 1996, 1998; Viana & Liddle 1996, 1999; Bryan & Norman 1998; Reichart et al. 1999; Borgani et al. 1999).

Measurements of the evolution of the cluster abundance have made significant progress over the past decade. For example, in their seminal work, Gioia et al. (1990) and Henry et al. (1992) computed the luminosity function of X–ray clusters extracted from the Einstein Extended Medium Sensitivity Survey (EMSS) and concluded that the X-ray Cluster Luminosity Function (XCLF) evolved rapidly over the redshift range of $`0.14z0.6`$.

The launch of the ROSAT satellite heralded a new era of investigation into the XCLF. The ROSAT All–Sky Survey (RASS) has provided new determinations of the local XCLF and has demonstrated that there is little observed evolution in the XCLF out to $`z0.3`$ (Ebeling et al. 1997; De Grandi et al. 1999) in agreement with the earlier work of Kowalski et al. (1984). In addition, the ROSAT satellite has supported several investigations of the distant X–ray cluster population (RIXOS, Castander et al. 1995; SHARC, Burke et al. 1997, Romer et al. 1999; RDCS, Rosati et al. 1998; WARPS, Jones et al. 1998; Vikhlinin et al. 1998a; NEP, Henry et al. 1998). Initially, such investigations reported a deficit of high redshift, low luminosity clusters consistent with the original EMSS result (Castander et al. 1995). However, over the last few years, there has been a growing consensus for a non–evolving XCLF. First, Nichol et al. (1997) re–examined the EMSS cluster sample and determined that the statistical evidence for evolution of the EMSS XCLF had decreased in light of new ROSAT data. Second, several authors have now conclusively shown that the XCLF does not evolve out to $`z0.7`$ for cluster luminosities of $`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}<3\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Collins et al. 1997; Burke et al. 1997; Rosati et al. 1998; Jones et al. 1998).

Above $`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}=3\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$, recent work has indicated that the XCLF may evolve rapidly in agreement with the original claim of Gioia et al. (1990). Reichart et al. (1999) highlighted a deficit of luminous ($`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}>5\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$) EMSS clusters at $`z>0.4`$ i.e. the EMSS survey has both the sensitivity and area to find such clusters but does not detect them. Moreover, Vikhlinin et al. (1998b) has recently reported evidence for a deficit of luminous clusters at $`z>0.3`$ based on the $`160\mathrm{deg}^2`$ ROSAT survey (Vikhlinin et al. 1998a).

In this paper, we report on the first determination of the bright end of the XCLF that is independent of the EMSS. In sections 2 & 3, we outline the Bright SHARC sample of clusters used herein and its selection function. In sections 4 & 5, we present the derivation of the XCLF and discuss its implications. Throughout this paper, we use $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{o}=50\mathrm{k}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ and $`q_o=\frac{1}{2}`$ to be consistent with other work in this field. All quoted luminosities are in the hard ROSAT passband \[$`0.52.0`$ keV\] and are aperture and k–corrected (see Romer et al. 1999 for details).

## 2 The Bright SHARC Sample

The details of the construction of the Bright SHARC survey are presented in Romer et al. (1999). The Bright SHARC was constructed from 460 deep ($`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{exp}}>10`$ ksecs), high galactic latitude ($`|b|>20^{}`$), ROSAT PSPC pointings which cover a unique area of $`178.6\mathrm{deg}^2`$. Using a wavelet–based detection algorithm, $`10277`$ X–ray sources were detected in these pointings of which $`374`$ were measured to be significantly extended ($`>3\sigma `$; see Nichol et al. 1997) relative to the ROSAT PSPC point–spread function. The Bright SHARC represents the brightest 94 of these 374 extended cluster candidates above a ROSAT count rate of 0.0116 $`\mathrm{cnts}\mathrm{s}^1`$. This corresponds to a flux limit of $`1.4\times 10^{13}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$ \[0.5–2.0 keV\] for the average neutral hydrogen column density of the Bright SHARC and a cluster temperature of $`6`$ keV.

Over the past two years, we have optically identified the most likely X–ray emitter for $`91`$ of these $`94`$ Bright SHARC cluster candidates and have discovered $`37`$ clusters, $`3`$ groups of galaxies and $`9`$ nearby galaxies (the remainder are blends of X–ray sources e.g. AGNs & stars; see Romer et al. 1999). We find $`12`$ clusters in the range $`0.3z0.83`$ (median redshift of $`z=0.42`$) and have independently detected cluster RXJ0152-7363 ($`z=0.83`$ based on 3 galaxy redshifts obtained at the CFHT) which is one of the most luminous, high redshift X–ray clusters ever detected (see Romer et al. 1999). This cluster has also been detected by the WARPS and RDCS surveys (see Ebeling et al. 1999; Rosati, private communication).

## 3 Selection Function

An important part of any survey is a solid understanding of the selection function i.e. the efficiency of finding objects as a function of both cosmological and operational parameters. In the case of the EMSS cluster sample, the selection function is somewhat straightforward since the EMSS optically identified all sources regardless of their observed X–ray extent. This is not the case for the Bright SHARC and therefore, the most direct way of modelling the selection function is through Monte Carlo simulations. The details of such simulations are given in Adami et al. (1999) but we present here some initial results.

The Bright SHARC selection function is obtained by adding artificial clusters to PSPC pointings and determining if these clusters would have satisfied the Bright SHARC selection criteria. In this way, we can accurately model the effects of the signal–to–noise cut, the extent criteria and blending of sources. To date, we have only simulated artificial clusters at four different intrinsic luminosities, $`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}=1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}5}\&\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}`$ ($`\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ i.e. equally spaced in log–space), and covering a redshift range of $`0.3z1`$ in steps of $`\delta _z=0.05`$. These artificial clusters were constructed assuming an isothermal King profile with $`r_c=250`$ kpc and $`\beta =\frac{2}{3}`$. The effects of changing the cluster profile and its parameters are explored in detail in Adami et al. (1999).

For each combination of $`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}`$ and $`z`$, we added, one at a time, 10 artificial clusters to each of 10 PSPC pointings (randomly chosen from all pointings available in the SHARC survey). The positions of the clusters in these pointings were chosen at random but recorded for later use when computing the area surveyed (see below). For each artificial cluster, we computed the expected number of ROSAT PSPC counts for its given luminosity, redshift and the exposure time of the pointing. We then took a Poisson deviate about the expected number of counts and distributed the counts at random assuming a redshifted King profile. The pointing was then processed in the same fashion as the real data (see Romer et al. 1999; Nichol et al. 1997) thus allowing us to determine if the cluster would have been selected for the Bright SHARC.

In Figure 1, we show the results of these initial simulations. The effective area of the Bright SHARC was computed by splitting the PSPC field–of–view into 4 annulii ($`2.\mathrm{}56.\mathrm{}25`$, $`6.\mathrm{}2511.\mathrm{}25`$, $`11.\mathrm{}516.\mathrm{}25`$ and $`16.\mathrm{}522.\mathrm{}5`$; the central part of the PSPC was excluded) and multiplying the area in each of these annulii by the measured success rate of detecting clusters in these same annulii (as a function of the input cluster redshift and luminosity). We then summed the effective area in these annulii over all pointings used – again as a function of luminosity and redshift – to provide the total effective area sampled by the simulations. Finally, we re–scaled the results to obtain the expected area for all 460 PSPC pointings used in the Bright SHARC.

## 4 Luminosity Function

The luminosity function of the Bright SHARC was determined using the $`1/\mathrm{V}_\mathrm{a}`$ methodology outlined in Avni & Bahcall (1980), Henry et al. (1992) and Nichol et al. (1997), where $`\mathrm{V}_\mathrm{a}`$ is the available sample volume for any given cluster in the survey. Using the selection function presented in Figure 1, $`V_a`$ can be computed for a cluster of luminosity $`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}`$ using

$$\mathrm{V}_\mathrm{a}=_{z_{low}}^{z_{high}}\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x},z)V(z)𝑑z,$$
(1)   
where $`z_{low}`$ and $`z_{high}`$ are the lower and upper bounds of the redshift shell of interest, $`V(z)`$ is the volume per unit solid angle for that redshift shell and $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x},z)`$ is the effective area of the Bright SHARC from Figure 1. In practice, the integral in Eqn. 1 is replaced by a sum over the discrete values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x},z)`$ obtained from the simulations. Linear interpolation was used where necessary to obtain finer resolution in both luminosity and redshift space.

The luminosity function was derived by summing the $`\mathrm{V}_\mathrm{a}`$ values for all clusters in the Bright SHARC as a function of luminosity i.e.

$$\mathrm{n}(\mathrm{L})=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{L}}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{1}{\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{a}}^{}{}_{}{}^{i}},$$
(2)   
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{L}`$ is the width of the luminosity bins and $`N`$ is the number of clusters in that luminosity bin (Table 1). For the results presented here, we have restricted ourselves to the luminosity range $`10^{44}\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}10^{45}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

In Figure 2, we present the Bright SHARC XCLF and compare it to the Southern SHARC XCLF (Burke et al. 1997) and measurements of the local XCLF (Ebeling et al. 1997; De Grandi et al. 1999). We provide, in Table 1, the data points displayed in Figure 2 together with the redshift and luminosity ranges studied. We also provide the number of clusters in each bin. We have not performed a parametric fit to the data because of the limited dynamic range in luminosity available from our present simulations.

## 5 Discussion

Figure 2 demonstrates that the high redshift XCLF does not evolve below $`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}=5\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$, or below $`\mathrm{L}^{}`$ in the XCLF ($`\mathrm{L}^{}=5.7_{0.93}^{+1.29}\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ from Ebeling et al. 1997). Using a Kolmogorov–Smirnov (KS) test similar to that discussed by De Grandi et al. (1999), we find that the Bright SHARC unbinned data is fully consistent with the low redshift XCLF over the luminosity range $`1\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}5\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (we find a KS probability of 0.32). This result is consistent with previous work (Nichol et al. 1997; Burke et al. 1997; Rosati et al. 1998; Jones et al. 1998) but pushes the evidence for a non–evolving XCLF to the highest luminosities presently reached by ROSAT data. This is illustrated by the fact that we find 6 distant clusters in the luminosity range $`3\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}5\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Table 1) which is more than any other ROSAT archival survey. The issue therefore becomes the degree of observed evolution in the XCLF above $`\mathrm{L}^{}`$.

We have investigated evolution in the XCLF above $`\mathrm{L}^{}`$ in two separate ways. First, we have one very luminous high redshift cluster in the Bright SHARC – RXJ0152.7-1357 ($`z=0.83`$; $`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}=8.5\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$) – which probes the XCLF above $`\mathrm{L}^{}`$. The implied position of this cluster in the XCLF is given in Figure 2 and Table 1 (we used a redshift range of $`0.3z1`$ and luminosity range of $`7\times 10^{44}\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}10^{45}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ when computing the volume sampled by this cluster). As can be seen in Figure 2, the implied space density of RXJ0152-1357 agrees with the local XCLF and may be evidence for a non-evolving XCLF above $`\mathrm{L}^{}`$. However, we must remain cautious since RXJ0152.7-1357 has a complex X–ray morphology indicative of an on–going merger which may have enhanced its luminosity (see Ebeling et al. 1999). Such disturbed or non–spherical morphologies (both in the X–rays and optical) appear to be common at these high redshifts – e.g. MS1054.4-0321 at $`z=0.823`$ (Donahue et al. 1999) and RXJ1716.6+6708 at $`z=0.813`$ (Henry et al. 1998; Gioia et al. 1999) – and may indicate that we are witnessing the epoch of massive cluster formation.

The second path of investigation is to repeat the analysis of Collins et al. (1997) and Vikhlinin et al. (1998b) and compute the number of expected Bright SHARC clusters at these bright luminosities assuming a non–evolving XCLF. In the luminosity range $`5\times 10^{44}\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}10^{45}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and redshift range $`0.3z0.7`$, we would predict $`4.9`$ clusters based on the De Grandi et al. (1999) XCLF (or $`3.5`$ clusters using the Ebeling et al 1997 XCLF). At present, the Bright SHARC contains only one confirmed cluster in this range, RXJ1120.1+4318 at $`z=0.60`$ and $`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}=5.03\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The Poisson statistical significance (Gehrels 1986) of this observed deficit is $`96\%`$ (or $`90\%`$ for Ebeling et al. 1997).

One way to increase the statistical significance of any possible deficit of high redshift X–ray luminous clusters is to combine the Bright SHARC and $`160\mathrm{d}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{g}^2`$ survey of Vikhlinin et al. (1998a) as both surveys should have similar selection functions. We have determined that $`201`$ ROSAT PSPC pointings are in common between the two surveys (see Romer et al. 1999), or $`44\%`$ of the area of the Bright SHARC. Vikhlinin et al. (1998b) have noted that their survey probably contains only 2 candidate clusters above $`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}=3\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`z>0.3`$ (based on photometric redshift estimates), while they would have expected 9 clusters above this redshift and luminosity limit. In fact, Bright SHARC spectroscopy of one of these two candidate clusters – RXJ1641+8232 – shows that it is at $`z=0.195`$ (based on 3 galaxy redshifts). The other candidate cluster – RXJ1641+4001 – is not in the Bright SHARC.

Therefore, the Bright SHARC plus the $`160\mathrm{d}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{g}^2`$ survey cover a total area of $`260\mathrm{deg}^2`$ and scaling the aforementioned numbers appropriately, we would expect $`7.6`$ (using the De Grandi et al. 1999 XCLF) or $`5.5`$ (using the Ebeling et al. 1997 XCLF) clusters in the luminosity range $`5\times 10^{44}\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}10^{45}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and redshift range $`0.3z0.7`$. By comparison, this joint survey contains only 1 confirmed<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2 On–going spectroscopic redshift measurements of further candidate clusters in the $`160\mathrm{d}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{g}^2`$ survey have yet to reveal a single $`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}>5\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ cluster (Vihklinin, private communication) X–ray luminous, high redshift cluster. From Gehrels (1986), the statistical significance of this deficit is now 99.5% or 97.5% respectively. We note however that there are still candidates in both surveys that require further optical follow–up i.e. one of the three unidentified Bright SHARC candidates mentioned in section 2 could be a high redshift cluster.

The above analyses suffer from small number statistics and incomplete optical follow–up. Moveover, the local XCLFs are also affected by small number statistics at these high X–ray luminosities. Therefore, the issue of evolution above $`\mathrm{L}^{}`$ in the XCLF remains unclear. However, we note that four independent surveys of distant clusters of galaxies have now seen a potential deficit of X-ray luminous high redshift clusters (SHARC, WARPS, EMSS, $`160\mathrm{deg}^2`$ survey). It is worth stressing that some level of XCLF evolution is expected above $`\mathrm{L}^{}`$ at high redshift and the degree of such evolution is a strong indicator of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ (see Blanchard & Oukdir 1992, 1997; Reichart et al. 1999).

The way to resolve these problems is to construct larger samples of clusters over bigger areas of the sky. This is certainly possible for the local XCLF e.g. using the on–going REFLEX survey of clusters being constructed from the RASS (see Böhringer et al. 1998). However, for the distant XCLF, it is unlikely that a significant amount of further area ($`>>260\mathrm{deg}^2`$) can be added to the present surveys using the existing ROSAT pointing archive; one may have to wait for the XMM satellites (see Romer 1998). The next major improvements to the results presented in this paper will be to obtain a more detailed view of the Bright SHARC selection function as well as to complete the optical follow–up of the remaining candidates. Another improvement would be the possible combination of all the ROSAT distant surveys (SHARC, $`160\mathrm{deg}^2`$, RDCS, NEP & WARPS) thus maximising the amount of volume sampled at high redshift.

## 6 Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Alain Blanchard, Jim Bartlett, Francisco Castander, Harald Ebeling, Pat Henry, Andrew Liddle, Piero Rosati & Alex Vikhlinin for helpful discussions over the course of this work. This research was supported through NASA ADP grant NAG5-2432 (at NWU) and NASA LTSA grant NAG5-6548 (at CMU). AM thanks the Carnegie Mellon Undergraduate Research Initiative for financial assistance. We thank Alain Mazure and the IGRAP–LAS (Marseille, France) for their support.