S. Borgani et al., Cosmological constraints from the clustering properties of the X-ray Brightest Abell-type Cluster sample, M NOT R AST, 305(4), 1999, pp. 866-874
We present an analysis of the two-point correlation function, xi(r), of the
X-ray Brightest Abell-type Cluster sample (XBACs) of Ebeling et al, and of
the cosmological constraints that it provides. If xi(r) is modelled as a p
ower-law, xi(r) = (r(0)/r)(gamma), we find r(0) similar or equal to 26.0 +/
- 4.5 h(-1) Mpc and gamma similar or equal to 2.0 +/- 0.4, with errors corr
esponding to 2 sigma uncertainties for one significant fitting parameter. A
s a general feature, xi(r) is found to remain positive up to r similar or e
qual to 50-55 h(-1) Mpc, after which it declines and crosses zero. Only a m
arginal increase of the correlation amplitude is found as the Aux limit is
increased from 5 x 10(-12) to 12 x 10(-12) ergs s(-1) cm(-2), thus indicati
ng a weak dependence of the correlation amplitude on the cluster X-ray lumi
nosity. Furthermore, we present a method to predict correlation functions f
or flux-limited X-ray cluster samples from cosmological models. The method
is based on the analytical recipe by Mo & White and on an empirical approac
h to convert cluster fluxes into masses. We use a maximum likelihood method
to place constraints on the model parameter space from the XBACs xi(r) For
scale-free primordial spectra, we find that the shape parameter of the pow
er spectrum is determined to lie in the 2 sigma range 0.05 less than or sim
ilar to Gamma less than or similar to 0.20. As for the amplitude of the pow
er spectrum, we find sigma(8) = 0.4-0.8 for Ohm(0) = 1 and sigma(8) = 0.8-2
.0 for Ohm(0) = 0.3. The latter result is in complete agreement with, altho
ugh less constraining than, results based on the local cluster abundance.