The European Space Agency's Planck satellite, dedicated to studying the early Universe and its subsequent evolution, was launched 14 May 2009 and has been scanning the microwave and submillimetre sky continuously since 12 August 2009. In March 2013, ESA and the Planck Collaboration released the initial cosmology products based on the first 15.5 months of Planck data, along with a set of scientific and technical papers and a web-based explanatory supplement. This paper gives an overview of the mission and its performance, the processing, analysis, and characteristics of the data, the scientific results, and the science data products and papers in the release. The science products include maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and diffuse extragalactic foregrounds, a catalogue of compact Galactic and extragalactic sources, and a list of sources detected through the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. The likelihood code used to assess cosmological models against the Planck data and a lensing likelihood are described. Scientific results include robust support for the standard six-parameter ΛCDM model of cosmology and improved measurements of its parameters, including a highly significant deviation from scale invariance of the primordial power spectrum. The Planck values for these parameters and others derived from them are significantly different from those previously determined. Several large-scale anomalies in the temperature distribution of the CMB, first detected by WMAP, are confirmed with higher confidence. Planck sets new limits on the number and mass of neutrinos, and has measured gravitational lensing of CMB anisotropies at greater than 25σ. Planck finds no evidence for non-Gaussianity in the CMB. Planck's results agree well with results from the measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations. Planck finds a lower Hubble constant than found in some more local measures. Some tension is also present between the amplitude of matter fluctuations (σ 8 ) derived from CMB data and that derived from Sunyaev-Zeldovich data. The Planck and WMAP power spectra are offset from each other by an average level of about 2% around the first acoustic peak. Analysis of Planck polarization data is not yet mature, therefore polarization results are not released, although the robust detection of E-mode polarization around CMB hot and cold spots is shown graphically.

Context. Galaxy clusters provide unique laboratories to study astrophysical processes on large scales and are important probes for cosmology. X-ray observations are currently the best means of detecting and characterizing galaxy clusters. Therefore X-ray surveys for galaxy clusters are one of the best ways to obtain a statistical census of the galaxy cluster population. Aims. In this paper we describe the construction of the REFLEX II galaxy cluster survey based on the southern part of the ROSAT All-Sky Survey. REFLEX II extends the REFLEX I survey by a factor of about two down to a flux limit of 1.8 × 10 −12 erg s −1 cm −2 (0.1−2.4 keV). Methods. We describe the determination of the X-ray parameters, the process of X-ray source identification, and the construction of the survey selection function. Results. The REFLEX II cluster sample comprises currently 915 objects. A standard selection function is derived for a lower source count limit of 20 photons in addition to the flux limit. The median redshift of the sample is z = 0.102. Internal consistency checks and the comparison to several other galaxy cluster surveys imply that REFLEX II is better than 90% complete with a contamination less than 10%. Conclusions. With this publication we give a comprehensive statistical description of the REFLEX II survey and provide all the complementary information necessary for a proper modeling of the survey for astrophysical and cosmological applications.

We have identified new clusters and characterized previously unknown Planck Sunyaev–Zeldovich (SZ) sources from the first Planck catalogue of SZ sources (PSZ1). The results presented here correspond to an optical follow-up observational programme developed during approximately one year (2014) at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, using the 2.5 m Isaac Newton telescope, the 3.5 m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, the 4.2 m William Herschel telescope and the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias. We have characterized 115 new PSZ1 sources using deep optical imaging and spectroscopy. We adopted robust criteria in order to consolidate the SZ counterparts by analysing the optical richness, the 2D galaxy distribution, and velocity dispersions of clusters. Confirmed counterparts are considered to be validated if they are rich structures, well aligned with the Planck PSZ1 coordinate and show relatively high velocity dispersion. Following this classification, we confirm 53 clusters, which means that 46% of this PSZ1 subsample has been validated and characterized with this technique. Sixty-two SZ sources (54% of this PSZ1 subset) remain unconfirmed. In addition, we find that the fraction of unconfirmed clusters close to the galactic plane (at |b| < 25°) is greater than that at higher galactic latitudes (|b| > 25°), which indicates contamination produced by radio emission of galactic dust and gas clouds on these SZ detections. In fact, in the majority of the cases, we detect important galactic cirrus in the optical images, mainly in the SZ target located at low galactic latitudes, which supports this hypothesis.

The XMM-Newton-Blanco Cosmology Survey project (XMM-BCS) is a coordinated X-ray, optical and mid-infrared cluster survey in a field also covered by Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE) surveys by the South Pole Telescope and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. The aim of the project is to study the cluster population in a 14 deg 2 field (center: α ≈ 23:29:18.4, δ ≈ −54:40:33.6). The uniform multi-wavelength coverage will also allow us for the first time to comprehensively compare the selection function of the different cluster detection approaches in a single test field and perform a cross-calibration of cluster scaling relations. In this work, we present a catalog of 46 X-ray selected clusters from the initial 6 deg 2 survey core. We describe the XMM-BCS source detection pipeline and derive physical properties of the clusters. We provide photometric redshift estimates derived from the BCS imaging data and spectroscopic redshift measurements for a low redshift subset of the clusters. The photometric redshift estimates are found to be unbiased and in good agreement with the spectroscopic values. Our multi-wavelength approach gives us a comprehensive look at the cluster and group population up to redshifts z ≈ 1. The median redshift of the sample is 0.47 and the median mass M 500 ≈ 1 × 10 14 M (∼2 keV). From the sample, we derive the cluster log N − log S using an approximation to the survey selection function and find it in good agreement with previous studies. We compare optical mass estimates from the Southern Cosmology Survey available for part of our cluster sample with our estimates derived from the X-ray luminosity. Weak lensing masses available for a subset of the cluster sample are in agreement with our estimates. Optical masses based on cluster richness and total optical luminosity are found to be significantly higher than the X-ray values. The present results illustrate the excellent potential of medium-deep, X-ray surveys to deliver cluster samples for cosmological modelling. In combination with available multi-wavelength data in optical, near-infrared and SZE, this will allow us to probe the dependence of the selection functions on relevant cluster observables and provide thus an important input for upcoming large-area multi-wavelength cluster surveys.

Aims. We present the results of Suzaku observations of a nearby galaxy cluster, A76 at z = 0.0395. This cluster is characterized by extremely low X-ray surface brightness and is hereafter referred to as the LSB cluster. We investigate the nature and thermodynamic evolution of the LSB cluster by studying the physical properties of the hot intracluster medium in A76. Methods. We conducted two-pointed Suzaku observations of A76 and examined the global gas properties of the cluster by XIS spectral analysis. We also performed deprojection analysis of annular spectra and derived radial profiles of gas temperature, density, and entropy out to approximately 850 kpc (∼0.6r 200 ) in A76 East and 560 kpc (∼0.4r 200 ) in A76 West. Results. The measured global temperature and metal abundance are approximately 3.3 keV and 0.24 solar, respectively. From the deprojection analysis, the entropy profile is found to be flat with respect to radius. The entropy within the central region (r < 0.2r 200 ) is exceptionally high (∼400 keV cm 2 ), a phenomenon that is not readily explained by either gravitational heating or preheating. The X-ray morphology is clumped and irregular, and the electron density is extremely low (10 −4 −10 −3 cm −3 ) for the observed high temperature, suggesting that A76 is in the early phase of cluster formation and that the gas compression due to gravitational potential confinement is lagging behind the gas heating.