* Astronomy

Title: Does the Corona Borealis Supercluster form a giant binary-like system?
Author: Giovanni C. Baiesi Pillastrini

The distribution of local gravitational potentials generated by a complete volume-limited sample of galaxy groups and clusters filling the Corona Borealis region has been analysed. Mapping such a distribution as a function of spatial positions, the deepest potential wells trace unambiguously the locations of the densest cluster clumps within the selected sample providing the physical keys to disentangle a still open issue regarding the true extent and cluster membership of the well-known region of the Corona Borealis Supercluster. The two deepest potential wells found at R.A. ~ 230°, Decl. ~ 29° and z ~ .074 and, R.A. ~ 240°, Decl. ~ 28° and z ~ .09 correspond to very close and massive clumps of galaxy groups and clusters similar to a binary-like system lying in the central part of the Corona Borealis region. The first clump matches the location of the supercluster commonly referred to as Corona Borealis, while its more massive companion is centrally dominated by the cluster A2142, one of the richest clusters found by Abell (1961). To a first approximation, this binary-like system seems gravitationally bound favouring the idea that the region apparently dominated by the Corona Borealis Supercluster is more massive and extended than commonly believed in literature.

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