Detecting Clusters of Galaxies at High Redshift with the Spitzer Space Telescope

Abstract

We present an infrared adaptation of the Cluster Red-Sequence method. We modify the two filter technique of Gladders & Yee (2000) to identify clusters based on their R-[3.6] color. We apply the technique to the 4 degree^2 Spitzer First Look Survey and detect 123 clusters spanning the redshift range 0.09 < z < 1.4. Our results demonstrate that the Spitzer Space Telescope will play an important role in the discovery of large samples of high redshift galaxy clusters.

To appear in the conference proceedings "Spitzer Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe, held Nov. 2004 in Pasadena, 4 pages including 4 figures