The Most Massive Clusters in the Universe

Abstract

Clusters of galaxies need to be investigated using complementary approaches combining all currently available observational techniques (X-ray, gravitational lensing, dynamics, SZ) on homogeneous samples if one wants to understand their evolution and physical properties. This is particularly important in order to relate the observable quantities to the cosmologically important cluster mass. We present here a number of on-going projects that aim at studying cluster physics for samples based on currently available all-sky X-ray surveys such as XBACs, BCS and MACS.

10 pages, 7 figures; to be published in the Proceedings of the Conference on "Matter and Energy in Clusters of Galaxies" held on April 23th-27th 2002 in Chung-Li, Taiwan; ASP Conf. Series, eds. S. Bowyer & C.-Y. Hwang