Weak lensing measurement of the mass-richness relation using the SDSS database

Abstract

We study the mass-richness relation using galaxy catalogues and images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We use two independent methods: In the first one, we calibrate the scaling relation with weak-lensing mass estimates. In the second procedure, we apply a background subtraction technique to derive the probability distribution, P(M|N), that groups with N-members have a virialized halo mass M. Lensing masses are derived in different richness bins for two galaxy systems sets: the maxBCG catalogue and a catalogue based on a group finder algorithm developed by Yang et al. Results of maxBCG are used to test the lensing methodology. The lensing mass?richness relation for the Yang et al. group sample shows a good agreement with P(M|N) obtained independently with a straightforward procedure.