Related papers: Co-evolution of BCGs and ICL using CLASH
The diffuse starlight extending throughout massive galaxy clusters, known as intracluster light (ICL), has the potential to be read as a memoir of mass accretion: informative, individual, and yet imperfect. Here, we combine dark matter-only…
Intracluster light is thought to originate from stars that were ripped away from their parent galaxies by gravitational tides and galaxy interactions during the build up of the cluster. The stars from such interactions will accumulate over…
The numerous and massive young star clusters in blue compact galaxies (BCGs) are used to investigate the properties of their hosts. We test whether BCGs follow claimed relations between cluster populations and their hosts, such as the the…
Understanding the formation history of brightest cluster galaxies is an important topic in galaxy formation. Utilizing the Planck Sunyaev-Zel'dovich cluster catalog, and applying the Ansatz that the most massive halos at one redshift remain…
We present the results of a MIPS-24um study of the Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) of 535 high-redshift galaxy clusters. The clusters are drawn from the Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-Sequence Cluster Survey (SpARCS), which effectively…
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…
We present results on the evolution in the last 6 Gyr of the structural parameters of two samples of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). The nearby sample of BCGs consist on 69 galaxies from the WINGS survey spanning a redshift range of…
We use a set of simulation-based models for the dissipationless evolution of galaxies since z=1 to constrain the fate of accreted satellites embedded in dark matter subhalos. These models assign stellar mass to dark matter halos at z=1 by…
Although it is generally accepted that massive galaxies form in a two-phased fashion, beginning with a rapid mass buildup through intense starburst activities, followed by primarily dry mergers that mainly deposit stellar mass at outskirts,…
We have identified perhaps the largest major galaxy merger ever seen. While analysing Spitzer IRAC images of CL0958+4702, an X-ray selected cluster at z=0.39, we discovered an unusual plume of stars extending $\gtrsim$110 kpc outward from…
We study the formation and evolution of stellar halos (SHs) around bright central galaxies (BCGs), focusing on their scaling relations, colors, and metallicities across cosmic time, and compare model predictions with ultra--deep imaging…
We investigate the roles of major and minor mergers during brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) assembly using surface brightness profiles, line indices, and fundamental plane relations. Based on our own sample and consistently reanalyzed Sloan…
The bulk of stars in galaxy clusters are confined within their constituent galaxies. Those stars do not trace the extended distribution of dark matter well as they are located in the central regions of the cluster's dark matter sub-halos. A…
The intra-cluster light (ICL) in observations is usually identified through the surface brightness limit method. In this paper, for the first time we produce the mock images of galaxy groups and clusters using a cosmological hydro-…
Using N-body simulations, we have modeled the production and evolution of low surface brightness, diffuse intra-cluster light (ICL) in galaxy clusters. By creating simulated observations of the clusters we have measured the evolution of the…
The current consensus on the formation and evolution of the brightest cluster galaxies is that their stellar mass forms early ($z \gtrsim 4$) in separate galaxies that then eventually assemble the main structure at late times ($z \lesssim…
We present a detailed analysis of the surface brightness distribution of the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) in each of 24 galaxy clusters at 0.03<z<0.13. We use two-dimensional profile fitting to model the surface brightness out to r=300…
Based on optical and X-ray data for a sample of 34 relaxed rich clusters of galaxies with redshifts of 0.1-0.9, we studied relative spatial distributions of the two major baryon contents, the cluster galaxies and the hot plasmas. Using…
A substantial fraction of the total stellar mass in rich clusters of galaxies resides in a diffuse intergalactic component usually referred to as the Intra-Cluster Light (ICL). Theoretical models indicate that these intergalactic stars…
We analyse the spatial distribution and colour of the intracluster light (ICL) in 683 clusters of galaxies between z=0.2 and 0.3, selected from approx 1500 deg^2 of the SDSS-DR1. Surface photometry in the g, r and i bands is conducted on…