A MULTIBAND STUDY OF THE GALAXY POPULATIONS OF THE FIRST FOUR SUNYAEV–ZEL'DOVICH EFFECT SELECTED GALAXY CLUSTERS

We present first results of an examination of the optical properties of the galaxy populations in Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect (SZE) selected galaxy clusters. Using clusters selected by the South Pole Telescope survey and deep multiband optical data from the Blanco Cosmology Survey, we measure the radial profile, the luminosity function (LF), the blue fraction, and the halo occupation number (HON) of the galaxy populations of these four clusters with redshifts ranging from 0.3 to 1. Our goal is to understand whether there are differences among the galaxy populations of these SZE-selected clusters and previously studied clusters selected in the optical and the X-ray. The radial distributions of galaxies in the four systems are consistent with Navarro-Frenk-White profiles with a galaxy concentration of 3 to 6. We show that the characteristic luminosities in griz bands are consistent with passively evolving populations emerging from a single burst at redshift z = 3. The faint-end power-law slope of the LF is found to be on average α ≈ –1.2 in griz. HONs (to m* + 2) for these systems appear to be consistent with those based on X-ray-selected clusters. The blue fraction estimated to 0.36 L*, for the three lower redshift systems, suggests an increase with redshift, although with the current sample the uncertainties are still large. Overall, this pilot study of the first four clusters provides no evidence that the galaxy populations in these systems differ significantly from those in previously studied cluster populations selected in the X-ray or the optical.