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Register a new userVelocity dispersion of the brightest cluster galaxies in cosmological simulations
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Using the DIANOGA hydrodynamical zoom-in simulation set of galaxy clusters, we analyze the dynamics traced by stars belonging to the Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) and their surrounding diffuse component, forming the intracluster light (ICL), and compare it to the dynamics traced by dark matter and galaxies identified in the simulations. We compute scaling relations between the BCG and cluster velocity dispersions and their corresponding masses (i.e. $M_mathrm{BCG}^{star}$- $sigma_mathrm{BCG}^{star}$, $M_{200}$- $sigma_{200}$, $M_mathrm{BCG}^{star}$- $M_{200}$, $sigma_mathrm{BCG}^{star}$- $sigma_{200}$), we find in general a good agreement with observational results. Our simulations also predict $sigma_mathrm{BCG}^{star}$- $sigma_{200}$ relation to not change significantly up to redshift $z=1$, in line with a relatively slow accretion of the BCG stellar mass at late times. We analyze the main features of the velocity dispersion profiles, as traced by stars, dark matter, and galaxies. As a result, we discuss that observed stellar velocity dispersion profiles in the inner cluster regions are in excellent agreement with simulations. We also report that the slopes of the BCG velocity dispersion profile from simulations agree with what is measured in observations, confirming the existence of a robust correlation between the stellar velocity dispersion slope and the cluster velocity dispersion (thus, cluster mass) when the former is computed within $0.1 R_{500}$. Our results demonstrate that simulations can correctly describe the dynamics of BCGs and their surrounding stellar envelope, as determined by the past star-formation and assembly histories of the most massive galaxies of the Universe.
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We search for ongoing major dry-mergers in a well selected sample of local Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) from the C4 cluster catalogue. 18 out of 515 early-type BCGs with redshift between 0.03 and 0.12 are found to be in major dry-mergers, which are selected as pairs (or triples) with $r$-band magnitude difference $dm<1.5$ and projected separation $rp<30$ kpc, and showing signatures of interaction in the form of significant asymmetry in residual images. We find that the fraction of BCGs in major dry-mergers increases with the richness of the clusters, consistent with the fact that richer clusters usually have more massive (or luminous) BCGs. We estimate that present-day early-type BCGs may have experienced on average $sim 0.6 (tmerge/0.3Gyr)^{-1}$ major dry-mergers and through this process increases their luminosity (mass) by $15% (tmerge/0.3Gyr)^{-1} (fmass/0.5)$ on average since $z=0.7$, where $tmerge$ is the merging timescale and $fmass$ is the mean mass fraction of companion galaxies added to the central ones. We also find that major dry-mergers do not seem to elevate radio activities in BCGs. Our study shows that major dry-mergers involving BCGs in clusters of galaxies are not rare in the local Universe, and they are an important channel for the formation and evolution of BCGs.
We identify a total of 120 early-type Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) at 0.1<z<0.4 in two recent large cluster catalogues selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). They are selected with strong emission lines in their optical spectra, with both H{alpha} and [O II]{lambda}3727 line emission, which indicates significant ongoing star formation. They constitute about ~ 0.5% of the largest, optically-selected, low-redshift BCG sample, and the fraction is a strong function of cluster richness. Their star formation history can be well described by a recent minor and short starburst superimposed on an old stellar component, with the recent episode of star formation contributing on average only less than 1 percent of the total stellar mass. We show that the more massive star-forming BCGs in richer clusters tend to have higher star formation rate (SFR) and specific SFR (SFR per unit galaxy stellar mass). We also compare their statistical properties with a control sample selected from X-ray luminous clusters, and show that the fraction of star-forming BCGs in X-ray luminous clusters is almost one order of magnitude larger than that in optically-selected clusters. BCGs with star formation in cooling flow clusters usually have very flat optical spectra and show the most active star formation, which may be connected with cooling flows.
Brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) are excellent laboratories to study galaxy evolution in dense Mpc-scale environments. We have observed in CO(1-0), CO(2-1), CO(3-2), or CO(4-3), with the IRAM-30m, 18 BCGs at $zsim0.2-0.9$ that are drawn from the CLASH survey. Our sample includes RX1532, which is our primary target, being among the BCGs with the highest star formation rate (SFR$gtrsim100~M_odot$/yr) in the CLASH sample. We unambiguously detected both CO(1-0) and CO(3-2) in RX1532, yielding a large reservoir of molecular gas, $M_{H_2}=(8.7pm1.1)times10^{10}~M_odot$, and a high level of excitation $r_{31}=0.75pm0.12$. A morphological analysis of the HST I-band image of RX1532 reveals the presence of clumpy substructures both within and outside the half-light radius $r_e=(11.6pm0.3)$ kpc, similarly to those found independently both in ultraviolet and in H$_alpha$ in previous work. We tentatively detected CO(1-0) or CO(2-1) in four other BCGs, with molecular gas reservoirs in the range $M_{H_2}=2times10^{10-11} M_odot$. For the remaining 13 BCGs we set robust upper limits of $M_{H_2}/M_starlesssim0.1$, which are among the lowest molecular gas to stellar mass ratios found for distant ellipticals and BCGs. By comparison with distant cluster galaxies observed in CO our study shows that RX1532 ($M_{H_2}/M_star = 0.40pm0.05$) belongs to the rare population of star forming and gas-rich BCGs in the distant universe. By using available X-ray based estimates of the central intra-cluster medium entropy, we show that the detection of large reservoirs of molecular gas $M_{H_2}gtrsim10^{10}~M_odot$ in distant BCGs is possible when the two conditions are met: i) high SFR and ii) low central entropy, which favors the condensation and the inflow of gas onto the BCGs themselves, similarly to what has been previously found for some local BCGs.
Understanding the formation history of brightest cluster galaxies is an important topic in galaxy formation. Utilizing the Planck Sunyaev-Zeldovich cluster catalog, and applying the Ansatz that the most massive halos at one redshift remain among the most massive ones at a slightly later cosmic epoch, we have constructed cluster samples at redshift z~0.4 and z~0.2 that can be statistically regarded as progenitor-descendant pairs. This allows us to study the stellar mass assembly history of BCGs in these massive clusters at late times, finding the degree of growth between the two epochs is likely at only few percent level, which is far lower compared to the prediction from a state-of-the-art semi-analytic galaxy formation model.
We obtained precise line-of-sight radial velocities of 23 member stars of the remote halo globular cluster Palomar 4 (Pal 4) using the High Resolution Echelle Spectrograph (HIRES) at the Keck I telescope. We also measured the mass function of the cluster down to a limiting magnitude of V~28 mag using archival HST/WFPC2 imaging. We derived the clusters surface brightness profile based on the WFPC2 data and on broad-band imaging with the Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS) at the Keck II telescope. We find a mean cluster velocity of 72.55+/-0.22 km/s and a velocity dispersion of 0.87+/-0.18 km/s. The global mass function of the cluster, in the mass range 0.55<=M<=0.85 M_solar, is shallower than a Kroupa mass function and the cluster is significantly depleted in low-mass stars in its center compared to its outskirts. Since the relaxation time of Pal 4 is of the order of a Hubble time, this points to primordial mass segregation in this cluster. Extrapolating the measured mass function towards lower-mass stars and including the contribution of compact remnants, we derive a total cluster mass of 29800 M_solar. For this mass, the measured velocity dispersion is consistent with the expectations of Newtonian dynamics and below the prediction of Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). Pal 4 adds to the growing body of evidence that the dynamics of star clusters in the outer Galactic halo can hardly be explained by MOND.
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