Related papers: Are dumbbell brightest cluster members signposts t…
It appears that the dynamical status of clusters and groups of galaxies is related to the large-scale structure of the Universe. A few interesting trends have been established: (1) The Cluster Substructure - Alignment Connection, by which…
Mass and concentration of clusters of galaxies are related and evolving with redshift. We study the properties of a sample of 31 massive galaxy clusters at high redshift, 0.8 < z < 1.5, using weak and strong lensing observations.…
We explore the properties of galaxies on the outskirts of clusters and their dependence on recent dynamical history in order to understand the real impact that the cluster core has on the evolution of galaxies. We analyse the properties of…
This review focuses on how galaxies and their globular cluster systems form. I first discuss the now fairly convincing evidence that some globular clusters form in galaxy starbursts/mergers. One way these observations are valuable is they…
We develop and implement a model to analyze the internal kinematics of galaxy clusters that may contain subpopulations of galaxies that do not independently trace the cluster potential. The model allows for substructures within the cluster…
Star formation in starbursts appears to be biased toward compact clusters, with up to 20% of all stars formed in them. Observations with HST show that many of these clusters have luminosities (-9 > Mv > -16), UBVI colors, and half-light…
Today, the brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) are passive and very massive galaxies at the center of their clusters, and they still accrete mass through swallowing companions and gas from cooling flows. However their formation history is not…
We analyze systematic effects in the determination of the galaxy luminosity function in clusters using a deep mock catalogue constructed from a numerical simulation of a hierarchical universe. The results indicate a strong tendency to…
We have examined the orientations of early-type galaxies in the Coma cluster to see whether the well-established tendency for brightest cluster galaxies to share the same major axis orientation as their host cluster also extends to the rest…
We present the first sample of 882 optically selected galaxy clusters in the Deep Lens Survey (DLS), selected with the Bayesian Cluster Finder. We create mock DLS data to assess completeness and purity rates, and find that both are at least…
In the next years the FERMI gamma ray telescope and the Cherenkov telescopes will put very stringent constraints to models of gamma ray emission from galaxy clusters providing crucial information on relativistic particles in the…
We present the results from multiple surveys for intracluster planetary nebulae (IPNe) in nearby galaxy clusters and groups. We find that in the case of clusters, our observations imply: 1) the amount of intracluster starlight is…
Post-starburst (PSB) galaxies are defined as having experienced a recent burst of star formation, followed by a prompt truncation in further activity. Identifying the mechanism(s) causing a galaxy to experience a post-starburst phase…
The diffuse light within galaxy groups and clusters provides valuable insight into the growth of massive cosmic structures. Groups are particularly interesting in this context, because they represent the link between galactic haloes and…
We consider a sample of 51 distant galaxy clusters at 0.15<z<0.9 (<z> about 0.3), each cluster having at least 10 galaxies with available redshift in the literature. We select member galaxies, analyze the velocity dispersion profiles, and…
Deep imaging data from the Keck II telescope are employed to study the globular cluster (GC) populations in the cores of six rich Abell clusters. The sample includes A754, A1644, A2124, A2147, A2151, and A2152, and spans the redshift range…
Recent independent results from numerical simulations and observations have shown that brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) have increased their stellar mass by a factor of almost two between z~0.9 and z~0.2. The numerical simulations further…
We have fitted the Mg2 absorption index gradients for 21 brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), in the nearby Universe, for which we have obtained high signal-to-noise ratio, long-slit spectra on the Gemini telescopes. This is a sub-sample of a…
Major galaxy mergers are thought to play an important part in fuelling the growth of supermassive black holes. However, observational support for this hypothesis is mixed, with some studies showing a correlation between merging galaxies and…
Young, massive star clusters are the most notable and significant end products of violent star-forming episodes triggered by galaxy collisions, mergers, and close encounters. The question remains, however, whether or not at least a fraction…