Weak Lensing Discovery and Tomography of a Cluster at z=0.68

Abstract

We report the weak lensing discovery, spectroscopic confirmation, and weak lensing tomography of a massive cluster of galaxies at $z=0.68$, demonstrating that shear selection of clusters works at redshifts high enough to be cosmologically interesting. The mass estimate from weak lensing, $11.1 +- 2.8 x 10^{14} (r/Mpc)$ solar masses within projected radius r, agrees with that derived from the spectroscopy ($\sigma_v = 980 km s^{-1}$), and with the position of an arc which is likely to be a strongly lensed background galaxy. The redshift estimate from weak lensing tomography is consistent with the spectroscopy, demonstrating the feasibility of baryon-unbiased mass surveys. This tomographic technique will be able to roughly identify the redshifts of any dark clusters which may appear in shear-selected samples, up to z ~ 1.