Structure and dynamics of the Shapley Supercluster

Abstract

We present results of our wide-field redshift survey of galaxies in a 285 square degree region of the Shapley Supercluster (SSC), based on a set of 10 529 velocity measurements (including 1201 new ones) on 8632 galaxies obtained from various telescopes and from the literature. Our data reveal that the main plane of the SSC () extends further than previous estimates, filling the whole extent of our survey region of 12 degrees by 30 degrees on the sky (). There is also a connecting structure associated with the slightly nearer Abell 3571 cluster complex (). These galaxies seem to link two previously identified sheets of galaxies and establish a connection with a third one at near . They also tend to fill the gap of galaxies between the foreground Hydra-Centaurus region and the more distant SSC. In the velocity range of the Shapley Supercluster (), we found redshift-space overdensities with of 5.4 over the 225 square degree central region and 3.8 in a 192 square degree region excluding rich clusters. Over the large region of our survey, we find that the intercluster galaxies make up 48 per cent of the observed galaxies in the SSC region and, accounting for the different completeness, may contribute nearly twice as much mass as the cluster galaxies. In this paper, we discuss the completeness of the velocity catalogue, the morphology of the supercluster, the global overdensity, and some properties of the individual galaxy clusters in the Supercluster.