Galaxy clusters discovered in the SPT-SZ survey

This work represents the complete sample of clusters detected at high significance in the 2500deg^2^ SPT-SZ survey, which was completed in 2011. A total of 677 (409) cluster candidates are identified above a signal-to-noise threshold of {xi}=4.5 (5.0).

Ground- and space-based optical and near-infrared (NIR) imaging confirms overdensities of similarly colored galaxies in the direction of 516 (or 76%) of the {xi}>4.5 candidates and 387 (or 95%) of the {xi}>5 candidates; the measured purity is consistent with expectations from simulations. Of these confirmed clusters, 415 were first identified in SPT data, including 251 new discoveries reported in this work. We estimate photometric redshifts for all candidates with identified optical and/or NIR counterparts; we additionally report redshifts derived from spectroscopic observations for 141 of these systems.