Exploring the distant galaxy cluster population with the XMM Distant Cluster Project (Alessandro Nastasi, MPE-Garching)

The XMM-Newton Distant Cluster Project (XDCP) is proving to be very efficient in selecting and confirming high-redshift (z>0.8) clusters of galaxies, giving a strong contribution to unveil these systems during their early formation stages. In the last year we have pushed the redshift limit for spectroscopic confirmation of galaxy clusters up to z~1.58, getting 3 more systems at z>1.49. At such high redshift regime, we start to witness features that significantly deviate from the ones typically observed for the clusters in the local universe. In my talk I will focus on the main physical properties shown by these distant systems, inhabitants of the, until recently, so called 'redshift desert'.