The X-ray cluster survey with eROSITA: forecasts for cosmology, cluster physics and primordial non-Gaussianity

Starting in late 2013, the eROSITA telescope will survey the X-ray sky with unprecedented sensitivity. Assuming a detection limit of 50 photons in the (0.5-2.0) keV energy band with a typical exposure time of 1.6 ks, we predict that eROSITA will detect ~ 9.3 X 10^4 clusters of galaxies more massive than 5 X 10^13 Msun/h, with the currently planned all-sky survey. Their median redshift will be z ~ 0.35. We perform a Fisher-matrix analysis to forecast the constraining power of eROSITA on the LambdaCDM cosmology and, simultaneously, on the X-ray scaling relations for galaxy clusters. Special attention is devoted to the possibility of detecting primordial non-Gaussianity. We consider two experimental probes: the number counts and the angular clustering of a photon-count limited sample of clusters. We discuss how the cluster sample should be split to optimize the analysis and we show that redshift information of the individual clusters is vital to break the strong degeneracies among the model parameters. For example, performing a "tomographic" analysis based on photometric-redshift estimates and combining 1- and 2-point statistics will give marginal 1-sigma errors of Delta(sigma_8) ~ 0.036 and Delta(Omega_m) ~ 0.012 without priors, and improve the current estimates on the slope of the luminosity-mass relation by a factor of 3. Regarding primordial non-Gaussianity, eROSITA clusters alone will give Delta(f_NL) = 9, 36, 144 for the local, orthogonal and equilateral model, respectively. Measuring redshifts with spectroscopic accuracy would further tighten the constraints by nearly 40 per cent (barring f_NL which displays smaller improvements). Finally, combining eROSITA data with the analysis of temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background by the Planck satellite should give sensational constraints on both the cosmology and the properties of the intracluster medium.