Limits on Dust in Rich Clusters of Galaxies from the Color of Background Quasars

Abstract

I measure the V-I color distribution of two samples of radio-selected quasars. Quasars from one sample are projected on the sky within 1 degree of a rich foreground Abell cluster of galaxies, while quasars from the other sample are more than 3 degrees from any such cluster . There is no significant difference between the color distributions of the two samples. The 90\% upper limit on the relative reddening between the two samples is E(B-V)=0.05 mag. This result limits the allowed quantity of smoothly distributed dust in rich clusters, and contradicts previous indications for the existence of such a component.

Submitted to ApJ Letters. 14 pages incl. 2 figures, uuencoded, compressed postscript. Also available by anonymous ftp to ftp://wise3.tau.ac.il/pub/dani/dust.ps.Z