Clusters of galaxies are particularly interesting astrophysical systems, are the largest bound structures in the Universe, and contain fair sample of cosmic ingredients. Studies of cluster abundance as a function of mass and redshift were critical in establishing the standard model of cosmology. This dissertation presents results from X-ray imaging of massive distant (M > 10^14 M; 0:3 < z < 1.2) clusters, found via X-ray emission or Sunyaev-Zeldovich eff ect. This is the world's largest sample of massive galaxy clusters. We explore the radial and azimuthal profi les of the X-ray emitting gas and show that clusters are self-similar objects: their internal structure is largely independent of the cluster's mass or redshift, and
the fractions of di fferent types of clusters does not change with redshift. We also present a
new statistical technique for measuring a cluster's deviations from a perfect axisymmetric
shape, which is especially useful in the case of low photon count observations of distant
clusters. / Physics
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:harvard.edu/oai:dash.harvard.edu:1/12274621 |
| Date | 07 June 2014 |
| Creators | Nurgaliev, Daniyar Rashidovich |
| Contributors | Stubbs, Christopher William |
| Publisher | Harvard University |
| Source Sets | Harvard University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Rights | open |
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