Intermediate-Redshift Groups in the XBootes Survey
Eric Miller (MIT) , Mark Bautz, Catherine Grant (MIT), William Forman, Christine Jones, Stephen Murray, Alexey Vikhlinin (SAO)
Galaxy groups are key tracers of galaxy evolution, cluster evolution, and structure formation, yet they are difficult to study at even moderate redshift. We have undertaken a project to observe a flux-limited sample of intermediate-redshift (0.15 < z < 0.35) group candidates identified by the XBootes Chandra survey. By exploiting the unique multiwavelength coverage of the XBootes/NOAO Deep Wide Field Survey (NDWFS) field, we aim to (1) understand the connection between the X-ray and optical properties of groups, and (2) constrain non-gravitational processes that affect the energetics of the intragroup medium. Here we present deep Chandra/ACIS and Suzaku/XIS follow-up observations of the first four targets in this project. All four are confirmed sources of diffuse, thermal emission with derived temperatures between 1 and 5 keV and bolometric X-ray luminosities between 10^43 and 10^44 erg/s. We discuss these early results in the context of group and cluster evolution.