Oral Presentation

Galaxy Clusters as Probes for Cosmology: Status and Perspectives from Current Surveys

Author(s): Barbara Sartoris (MPE-LMU)

Presenter: Barbara Sartoris (MPE-LMU)

Galaxy clusters are powerful cosmological probes, sensitive to both the growth of structure and the geometry of the Universe. With the advent of large photometric and spectroscopic surveys, we are entering an era in which wide and deep datasets—such as those provided by Euclid, DES, SPT, and DESI—enable us to detect and characterise galaxy clusters over an unprecedented redshift range and volume.

In this talk, I will provide an overview of the current status of galaxy cluster surveys, highlighting the complementarity of different observational strategies across optical, infrared, and millimetre wavelengths. I will discuss the key steps in the cosmological pipeline that connect cluster observations to constraints on cosmological parameters, with emphasis on the challenges related to selection functions and mass calibration.

In parallel, I will show how deep observations of individual clusters or small samples—combined with multiwavelength data—can inform us about the properties of dark matter and the internal structure of halos. Finally, I will touch upon emerging approaches such as Simulation-Based Inference (SBI), which offer a promising route to exploit the full information content of clusters beyond traditional summary statistics.