The High-Redshift Clusters Occupied by Bent Radio AGN (COBRA) Survey: The \spitzer Catalog

Abstract: We present 190 galaxy cluster candidates (most at high redshift) based on galaxy overdensity measurements in the \spitzer/IRAC imaging of the fields surrounding 646 bent, double-lobed radio sources drawn from the Clusters Occupied by Bent Radio AGN (COBRA) Survey. The COBRA sources were chosen as objects in the VLA FIRST survey that lack optical counterparts in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to a limit of $m_r=22$, making them likely to lie at high redshift. This is confirmed by our observations: the redshift distribution of COBRA sources with estimated redshifts peaks near $z=1$, and extends out to $z\approx3$. Cluster candidates were identified by comparing our target fields to a background field and searching for statistically significant ($\ge2\sigma$) excesses in the galaxy number counts surrounding the radio sources; 190 fields satisfy the $\ge2\sigma$ limit. We find that 530 fields (82.0\%) have a net positive excess of galaxies surrounding the radio source. Many of the fields with positive excesses but below the $2\sigma$ cutoff are likely to be galaxy groups. Forty-one COBRA sources are quasars with known spectroscopic redshifts, which may be tracers of some of the most distant clusters known.