Related papers: The alignment between brightest cluster galaxies a…
Models of Cold Dark Matter predict that the distribution of dark matter in galaxy clusters should be cuspy, centrally concentrated. Constant density cores would be strong evidence for beyond-CDM physics, such as Self-Interacting Dark Matter…
We analyze the stellar growth of Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) produced by cosmological zoom-in hydrodynamical simulations of the formation of massive galaxy clusters. The evolution of the stellar mass content is studied considering…
The largest stellar halos in the universe are found in massive galaxy clusters, where interactions and mergers of galaxies, along with the cluster tidal field, all act to strip stars from their host galaxies and feed the diffuse…
We examine the colour-magnitude relation of approximately 5000 Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and compare with non-BCG E/S0 galaxies. The colour-magnitude and colour-sigma (velocity dispersion) relations…
We present a morphological study of 35 X-ray luminous galaxy clusters at 0.15<z<0.3, selected in a similar manner to the Local Cluster Substructure Survey (LoCuSS), for which deep XMM-Newton observations are available. We characterise the…
The kinematics of the diffuse light in the densest regions of the nearby clusters can be unmasked using the planetary nebulae (PNs) as probes of the stellar motions. The position-velocity diagrams around the brightest cluster galaxies…
Clusters of galaxies are the largest gravitationally bound systems and therefore provide an important way of studying the formation and evolution of the large scale structure of the Universe. Cluster evolution can be inferred from…
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…
The spin of galaxy clusters encodes key information about their formation, dynamics, and the influence of large-scale structure. However, whether clusters possess statistically significant spin and how to measure it observationally remain…
As the most massive nodes of the cosmic web, galaxy clusters represent the best probes of structure formation. Over time, they grow by accreting and disrupting satellite galaxies, adding those stars to the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) and…
We investigate the stellar and dynamical mass profiles in the centres of 25 brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) at redshifts of 0.05 $\leq z \leq$ 0.30. Our spectroscopy enables us to robustly measure the Gauss-Hermite higher order velocity…
Intracluster stars are believed to be unbound from their progenitor galaxies and diffused throughout the galaxy cluster, creating intracluster light (ICL). However, when and how these stars form are still in debate. To directly constrain…
We characterise the typical offset between the Dark Matter (DM) projected centre and the Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG) in 10,000 SDSS clusters. To place constraints on the centre of DM, we use an automated strong-lensing analysis,…
We have measured the flux, profile, color, and substructure in the diffuse intracluster light (ICL) in a sample of ten galaxy clusters with a range of mass, morphology, redshift, and density. Deep, wide-field observations for this project…
We report the detection of a pair of massive quiescent galaxies likely in the process of merging at the center of the spectroscopically confirmed, extremely massive protocluster BOSS1244 at $z=2.24\pm0.02$. These galaxies, BOSS1244-QG1 and…
Using data of five clusters of galaxies within the redshift range 0.15 $\leq$ z $\leq$ 0.25, imaged with the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) in the central $\approx$ 1 Mpc$^2$ in very good seeing conditions, we have performed an exhaustive…
Context. Distant galaxy clusters provide an effective laboratory in which to study galaxy evolution in dense environments and at early cosmic times. Aims. We aim to identify distant galaxy clusters as extended X-ray sources coincident with…
The presence of a diffuse stellar component in galaxy clusters has been established by a number of observational works in recent years. In this contribution I summarize our results (Zibetti et al. 2005) obtained by stacking SDSS images of…
We perform a detailed study of the location of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) on the fundamental plane of black hole (BH) accretion, which is an empirical correlation between a BH X-ray and radio luminosity and mass supported by…
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…