ESO imaging survey: II. Searching for distant clusters of galaxies

This paper presents preliminary results of a search for distant clusters of galaxies using the recently released I-band data obtained by the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS), covering about 3 square degrees. A matched filter algorithm is applied to the galaxy catalogs extracted from the two sets of frames that contiguously cover the whole surveyed area. From these catalogs two independent lists of cluster candidates are generated and used to establish, directly from the data, a robust detection threshold. In preparing the list of candidate clusters the main concern has been to avoid the inclusion of spurious detections. A preliminary catalog of 35 distant cluster candidates is presented, with estimated redshifts 0.2 ≤ z ≥ 1.0 over an area of 2.5 square degrees, after excluding regions where the quality of the available data is poor.