Citation for published item:i h rdD tF nd t uz D wF nd vimousinD wF nd tulloD iF nd gl¡ ementD fF nd i elingD rF nd unei D tFE F nd etekD rF nd x t r j nD F nd ig miD iF nd vivermoreD F nd fowerD F @PHIRA 9w ss nd m gni( tion m ps for the ru le p e eles ope prontier pields lusters X impli tions for highEredshift studiesF9D wonthly noti es of the oy l estronomi l o ietyFD RRR @IAF ppF PTVEPVWF Further information on publisher's website: Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. ABSTRACTExtending over three Hubble Space Telescope (HST) cycles, the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) initiative constitutes the largest commitment ever of HST time to the exploration of the distant Universe via gravitational lensing by massive galaxy clusters. Here, we present models of the mass distribution in the six HFF cluster lenses, derived from a joint strong-and weak-lensing analysis anchored by a total of 88 multiple-image systems identified in existing HST data. The resulting maps of the projected mass distribution and of the gravitational magnification effectively calibrate the HFF clusters as gravitational telescopes. Allowing the computation of search areas in the source plane, these maps are provided to the community to facilitate the exploitation of forthcoming HFF data for quantitative studies of the gravitationally lensed population of background galaxies. Our models of the gravitational magnification afforded by the HFF clusters allow us to quantify the lensing-induced boost in sensitivity over blank-field observations and predict that galaxies at z > 10 and as faint as m(AB) = 32 will be detectable, up to 2 mag fainter than the limit of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

We use deep Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the Frontier Fields to accurately measure the galaxy rest-frame ultraviolet luminosity function (UV LF) in the redshift range z ∼ 6-8. We combine observations in three lensing clusters, A2744, MACS 0416, and MACS 0717, and their associated parallelfields to select high-redshift dropout candidates. We use the latest lensing models to estimate the flux magnification and the effective survey volume in combination with completeness simulations performed in the source plane. We report the detection of 227 galaxy candidates at z = 6-7 and 25 candidates at z ∼ 8. While the total survey area is about 4 arcmin 2 in each parallel field, it drops to about 0.6-1 arcmin 2 in the cluster core fields because of the strong lensing. We compute the UV LF at z ∼ 7 using the combined galaxy sample and perform Monte Carlo simulations to determine the best-fit Schechter parameters. We are able to reliably constrain the LF down to an absolute magnitude of M UV = −15.25, which corresponds to 0.005 L å . More importantly, we find that the faint-end slope remains steep down to this magnitude limit with 2.04 . Our results confirm the most recent results in deep blank fields but extend the LF measurements more than two magnitudes deeper. The UV LF at z ∼ 8 is not very well constrained below M UV = −18 owing to the small number statistics and incompleteness uncertainties. To assess the contribution of galaxies to cosmic reionization, we derive the UV luminosity density at z ∼ 7 by integrating the UV LF down to an observational limit of M UV = −15. We show that our determination of log(ρ UV ) = 26.2 ± 0.13 (erg s −1 Hz −1 Mpc −3 ) can be sufficient to maintain reionization with an escape fraction of ionizing radiation of f esc = 10%-15%. Future Hubble Frontier Fields observations will certainly improve the constraints on the UV LF at the epoch of reionization, paving the way to more ambitious programs using cosmic telescopes with the next generation of large aperture telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope.

Galaxy cluster Abell 3827 hosts the stellar remnants of four almost equally bright elliptical galaxies within a core of radius 10 kpc. Such corrugation of the stellar distribution is very rare, and suggests recent formation by several simultaneous mergers. We map the distribution of associated dark matter, using new Hubble Space Telescope imaging and VLT/MUSE integral field spectroscopy of a gravitationally lensed system threaded through the cluster core. We find that each of the central galaxies retains a dark matter halo, but that (at least) one of these is spatially offset from its stars. The best-constrained offset is 1.62 +0.47 −0.49 kpc, where the 68% confidence limit includes both statistical error and systematic biases in mass modelling. Such offsets are not seen in field galaxies, but are predicted during the long infall to a cluster, if dark matter self-interactions generate an extra drag force. With such a small physical separation, it is difficult to definitively rule out astrophysical effects operating exclusively in dense cluster core environments -but if interpreted solely as evidence for self-interacting dark matter, this offset implies a cross-section σ DM /m ∼ (1.7 ± 0.7) × 10 −4 cm 2 /g ×(t infall /10 9 yrs) −2 , where t infall is the infall duration.

Big-Bang nucleosynthesis indicates that baryons account for 5% of the Universe’s total energy content[1]. In the local Universe, the census of all observed baryons falls short of this estimate by a factor of two[2,3]. Cosmological simulations indicate that the missing baryons have not yet condensed into virialised halos, but reside throughout the filaments of the cosmic web: a low-density plasma at temperature 105–107 K known as the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM)[3,4,5,6]. There have been previous claims of the detection of warm baryons along the line of sight to distant blazars[7,8,9,10] and hot gas between interacting clusters[11,12,13,14]. These observations were however unable to trace the large-scale filamentary structure, or to estimate the total amount of warm baryons in a representative volume of the Universe. Here we report X-ray observations of filamentary structures of ten-million-degree gas associated with the galaxy cluster Abell 2744. Previous observations of this cluster[15] were unable to resolve and remove coincidental X-ray point sources. After subtracting these, we reveal hot gas structures that are coherent over 8 Mpc scales. The filaments coincide with over-densities of galaxies and dark matter, with 5-10% of their mass in baryonic gas. This gas has been heated up by the cluster's gravitational pull and is now feeding its core.