The SPT-deep Cluster Catalog: Sunyaev–Zel’dovich Selected Clusters from Combined SPT-3G and SPTpol Measurements over 100 Square Degrees
K. Kornoelje, Lindsey E. Bleem, Eli S Rykoff, T. M. C. Abbott, Peter A. R. Ade, M. Aguena, O. Alves, Adam J. Anderson, F. Andrade-Oliveira, Behzad Ansarinejad, M. Archipley, M. L. N. Ashby, Jason E. Austermann, D. Bacon, L. Balkenhol, Matthew B. Bayliss, James A. Beall, K. Benabed, A. N. Bender, Bradford A. Benson · The Astrophysical Journal · 2026
Abstract We present a catalog of 500 galaxy cluster candidates in the SPT-Deep field: a 100 deg 2 field that combines data from the SPT-3G and SPTpol surveys to reach noise levels of 3.0, 2.2, and 9.0 μ K-arcmin at 95, 150, and 220 GHz, respectively. Candidates are selected via the thermal Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) effect with a minimum significance of ξ = 4.0, resulting in a catalog of purity ∼89%. Optical data from the Dark Energy Survey and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope are used to confirm 442 cluster candidates. The clusters span 0.12 1), the tSZ signal is reduced by 17 . 9 − 3.2 + 3.8 % ( 3 . 8 − 0.7 + 0.9 % ) at 150 GHz (95 GHz) due to dust contamination. We repeat our cluster finding method on dust-nulled SPT maps and find the resulting catalog is consistent with the nominal SPT-Deep catalog, suggesting dust contamination does not significantly impact the SPT-Deep selection function; we attribute this lack of bias to the inclusion of the SPT 220 GHz band.