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(Abridged) Fossil systems are group- or cluster-sized objects whose luminosity is dominated by a very massive central galaxy. In the current cold dark matter scenario, these objects formed hierarchically at an early epoch of the Universe and then slowly evolved until present day. That is the reason why they are called {it fossils}. We started an extensive observational program to characterize a sample of 34 fossil group candidates spanning a broad range of physical properties. Deep $r-$band images were taken for each candidate and optical spectroscopic observations were obtained for $sim$ 1200 galaxies. This new dataset was completed with SDSS DR7 archival data to obtain robust cluster membership and global properties of each fossil group candidate. For each system, we recomputed the magnitude gaps between the two brightest galaxies ($Delta m_{12}$) and the first and fourth ranked galaxies ($Delta m_{14}$) within 0.5 $R_{{rm 200}}$. We consider fossil systems those with $Delta m_{12} ge 2$ mag or $Delta m_{14} ge 2.5$ mag within the errors. We find that 15 candidates turned out to be fossil systems. Their observational properties agree with those of non-fossil systems. Both follow the same correlations, but fossils are always extreme cases. In particular, they host the brightest central galaxies and the fraction of total galaxy light enclosed in the central galaxy is larger in fossil than in non-fossil systems. Finally, we confirm the existence of genuine fossil clusters. Combining our results with others in the literature, we favor the merging scenario in which fossil systems formed due to mergers of $L^ast$ galaxies. The large magnitude gap is a consequence of the extreme merger ratio within fossil systems and therefore it is an evolutionary effect. Moreover, we suggest that at least one candidate in our sample could represent a transitional fossil stage.
This study is part of the FOssil Groups Origin (FOGO) project which aims at carrying out a systematic and multiwavelength study of a large sample of fossil systems. Here we focus on the relation between the optical luminosity (Lopt) and X-ray luminos
We review the formation and evolution of fossil groups and clusters from both the theoretical and the observational points of view. In the optical band, these systems are dominated by the light of the central galaxy. They were interpreted as old syst
Numerical simulations as well as optical and X-ray observations over the last few years have shown that poor groups of galaxies can evolve to what is called a fossil group. Dynamical friction as the driving process leads to the coalescence of individ
We want to study how the velocity segregation and the radial profile of the velocity dispersion depend on the prominence of the brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). We divide a sample of 102 clusters and groups of galaxies into four bins of magnitude g
We present Chandra snapshot observations of the first large X-ray sample of optically identified fossil groups. For 9 of 14 candidate groups, we are able to determine the X-ray luminosity and temperature, which span a range typical of large elliptica