The structure of the Universe traced by rich clusters of galaxies

We study the whole-sky distribution of rich clusters of galaxies up to the distance z ≈ 0.1 and present catalogues of superclusters and cluster-defined voids. The data on clusters, superclusters and voids show the presence of the characteristic scale of 130 h–1 Mpc in the supercluster-void network, found earlier by Broadhurst et al. from a one-dimensional study. This scale has been detected in the distribution of clusters of richnesses R = 0 and R ≥ 1. We perform tests to study the influence of projection effects. The clusters that do not belong to superclusters are located in the vicinity of superclusters and form their outlying parts. We compare the distribution of ACO clusters with that of APM clusters. The APM clusters determine a smaller scale: 100 h–1 Mpc. We discuss the possible reasons for this difference.