VLT and NTT observations of two EIS cluster candidates Detection of the early - type galaxies sequence at z ∼ 1 ?

Optical data from the ESO VLT-UT1 Science Verification observations are combined with near-infrared data from SOFI at the NTT to obtain optical-infrared color-magnitude diagrams for the objects in the fields of two EIS cluster candidates. In both cases, evidence is found for a well-defined sequence of red galaxies that appear to be significantly more clustered than the background population. These results suggest that the two systems are real physical associations. The (R − Ks), (I − Ks) and (J − Ks) colors of the red sequences are used, in conjunction with similar data for spectroscopically confirmed clusters, to obtain redshift estimates of z ∼ 0.9 and z ∼ 1.0 for these two systems. These results make these EIS cluster candidates prime targets for follow-up spectroscopic observations to confirm their reality and to measure more accurately their redshift.