Constancy of the Cluster Gas Mass Fraction in the R_h=ct Universe
  The ratio of baryonic to dark matter densities is assumed to have remained
constant throughout the formation of structure. With this, simulations show
that the fraction f_gas(z) of baryonic mass to total mass in galaxy clusters
should be nearly constant with redshift z. However, the measurement of these
quantities depends on the angular distance to the source, which evolves with z
according to the assumed background cosmology. An accurate determination of
f_gas(z) for a large sample of hot (kT_e > 5 keV), dynamically relaxed clusters
could therefore be used as a probe of the cosmological expansion up to z < 2.
The fraction f_gas(z) would remain constant only when the "correct" cosmology
is used to fit the data. In this paper, we compare the predicted gas mass
fractions for both LCDM and the R_h=ct Universe and test them against the 3
largest cluster samples. We show that R_h=ct is consistent with a constant
f_gas in the redshift range z < 2, as was previously shown for the reference
LCDM model (with parameter values H_0=70 km/s/Mpc, Omega_m=0.3 and w_de=-1).
Unlike LCDM, however, the R_h=ct Universe has no free parameters to optimize in
fitting the data. Model selection tools, such as the Akaike Information
Criterion (AIC) and the Bayes Information Criterion (BIC), therefore tend to
favour R_h=ct over LCDM. For example, the BIC favours R_h=ct with a likelihood
of ~95% versus ~5% for LCDM.
