Searching for dust in the intracluster medium from reddening of background galaxies

We report a search for the presence of dust in the intracluster medium based on the study of statistical reddening of background galaxies. Armed with the Red-sequence Cluster Survey data, from which we extracted (1) a catalog of 458 clusters with z(clust) < 0.5 and (2) a catalog of similar to 90,000 galaxies with photometric redshift 0.5 < z(ph) < 0.8 and photometric redshift uncertainty delta z(ph)/(1+z(ph)) < 0: 06, we have constructed several samples of galaxies according to their projected distances to the cluster centers. No significant color differences [< E(B - R-C)> 0.005 +/- 0.008 and < E(V - z')> 0.000 +/- 0.008] were found for galaxies in the background to the clusters compared to the references. Assuming a Galactic extinction law, we derive an average visual extinction of < A(V)> 0.004 +/- 0.010 toward the inner R-200 of clusters.