A Spectroscopic Census of X-Ray Systems in the COSMOS Field

Abstract

We investigate spectroscopic properties of galaxy systems identified based on deep X-ray observations in the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) field. The COSMOS X-ray system catalog we use includes 180 X-ray systems to a limiting flux of 1.0 x 10(-15) erg cm(-2) s(-1), an order of magnitude deeper than the future e-ROSITA survey. We identify spectroscopic members of these X-ray systems based on the spectroscopic catalog constructed by compiling various spectroscopic surveys including 277 new measurements; 146 X-ray systems are spectroscopically identified groups with more than three spectroscopic members. We identify 2196 spectroscopic redshifts of member candidates in these X-ray systems. The X-ray luminosity (L-x)-velocity dispersion (sigma(v)) scaling relation of the COSMOS X-ray systems is consistent with that of massive X-ray clusters. One of the distinctive features of the COSMOS survey is that it covers the X-ray luminosity range where poor groups overlap the range for extended emission associated with individual quiescent galaxies. We assess the challenges posed by the complex morphology of the distribution of systems with low X-ray luminosity, including groups and individual quiescent galaxies, in the L-x-sigma(v) plane.