Intergalactic stars in z∼ 0.25 galaxy clusters: systematic properties from stacking of Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging data

By S. Zibetti, Simon D. M. White, D. Schneider, Jon Brinkmann MPA-Garching, MPE-Garching, Penn. State Univ., A. P. Observatory. 2005

295 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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 ∼1500 deg 2 of the first data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-DR1). Surface photometry in the g-, r- and i-bands is conducted on stacked images of the clusters, after rescaling them to the same metric size and masking out resolved sources. We are able to trace the average surface brightness (SB) profile of the ICL out to 700 kpc, where it is less than 10 -4 of the mean surface brightness of the dark night sky. The ICL appears as a clear surface brightness excess with respect to an inner R 1/4 profile which characterizes the mean profile of the brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). The surface brightness of the ICL ranges from 27.5 mag arcsec -2 at 100 kpc to ∼32 mag arcsec -2 at 700 kpc in the observed r-band. This corresponds to a value of SB in the range 26.5-31 in the rest-frame g-band. We find that, on average, the ICL contributes only a small fraction of the total optical emission in a cluster. Within a fixed metric aperture of 500 kpc, this fraction is 10.9 ± 5.0 per cent for our clusters. A further 21.9 ± 3.0 per cent is contributed on average by the BCG itself. The radial distribution of the ICL is more centrally concentrated than that of the cluster galaxies, but the colours of the two components are identical within the statistical uncertainties. In the mean the ICL is aligned with and more flattened than the BCG itself. This alignment is substantially stronger than that of the cluster light as a whole. We find the surface brightness of the ICL to correlate both with BCG luminosity and with cluster richness, while the fraction of the total light in the ICL is almost independent of these quantities. These results support the idea that the ICL is produced by stripping and disruption of galaxies as they pass through the central regions of clusters. Our measurements of the diffuse light also constrain the faint-end slope of the cluster luminosity function. Slopes a < -1.35 would imply more light from undetected galaxies than is observed in the diffuse component.

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Citations in the corpus

The distribution and kinematics of early high-σ peaks in present-day haloes: implications for rare objects and old stellar populations (2005, background): “The central brightest galaxies in SDSS clusters have an average effective radius of R e 20 kpc and presumably about 10 per cent of the cluster luminosity (Zibetti et al. 2005).”
What determines satellite galaxy disruption (2009, background): “…are observed to contain an appreciable amount of stellar material in the form of ICL, though given its low surface brightness, constraints on the ICL vary considerably, from 5 − 50% of the total cluster light (Lin & Mohr 2004; Zibetti et al. 2005; Gonzalez et al. 2007; Krick & Bernstein 2007).”
NEW CONSTRAINTS ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE STELLAR-TO-DARK MATTER CONNECTION: A COMBINED ANALYSIS OF GALAXY–GALAXY LENSING, CLUSTERING, AND STELLAR MASS FUNCTIONS FROM z = 0.2 to z = 1 (2011, background): “We note that in massive halos, the intra-cluster light (ICL; not accounted for in this analysis) is estimated to contribute an additional 20%–30% of the total stellar mass (Feldmeier et al. 2004; Zibetti et al. 2005; Gonzalez et al. 2005; Krick et al. 2006).”
Intracluster stars in simulations with active galactic nucleus feedback (2010, methodology): “25-band of the photometric system defined in Zibetti et al. (2005) is used for this comparison. c© 0000 RAS, MNRAS 000, 000–000 to the mean mass of the observational sample.”
Galactic accretion and the outer structure of galaxies in the CDM model (2013, methodology): “Stacking (e.g. Zibetti et al. 2005; Tal & van Dokkum 2011) is a promising technique for studying the average properties of these regions.”
The importance of mergers for the origin of intracluster stars in cosmological simulations of galaxy clusters (2007, background): “The remaining total DSC fraction drops to about 6 per cent, less than half of the total, reflecting the steep radial profile of the DSC (Murante et al. 2004; Zibetti et al. 2005).”
Red Galaxy Growth and the Halo Occupation Distribution (2008, background): “This may indicate that mergers with very massive halos shift stellar mass out of the red galaxy population, perhaps into the ICL (e.g., Gonzalez et al. 2000; Arnaboldi et al. 2002; Feldmeier et al. 2004; Zibetti et al. 2005; Monaco et al. 2006; White et al. 2007; Conroy et al. 2007a, 2007b).”
Stars beyond galaxies: the origin of extended luminous haloes around galaxies (2005, unknown): “…the use of stacking techniques in wide-field surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have led to clear dtections of a distinct low surface brightness component around both isolated spiral galaxies (Zibetti, White & Brinkmann 2004)as well as central cluster galaxies (Zibetti et al 2005).”
Ongoing assembly of massive galaxies by major merging in large groups and clusters from the SDSS (2007, background): “Zibetti et al. (2005) found that the intracluster light (ICL) within 100 kpc of the group or cluster center makes up as much as 40% of the total cluster luminosity (galaxies+ICL), and they showed that the stars making up the ICL have the same colors as the old-stellar light from the massive…”
STELLAR AND TOTAL BARYON MASS FRACTIONS IN GROUPS AND CLUSTERS SINCE REDSHIFT 1 (2009, methodology): “Zibetti et al. (2005) used stacking analysis of 683 systems at z=0.2–0.3 ranging in total mass from a few times 1013 to 5×1014M⊙ (the average total mass is 7×1013M⊙), selected from a 1500 deg2 of SDSS-DR1, reaching the unprecedented surface brightness limit of ∼32 mag arcsec−2 (R–band in the z=0.25…”
Impact of baryon physics on dark matter structures: a detailed simulation study of halo density profiles (2010, background): “This additional contribution likely ranges between 11 and 22 per cent (e.g. Zibetti et al. 2005; Krick & Bernstein 2007).”
The Masses of Nuclear Black Holes in Luminous Elliptical Galaxies and Implications for the Space Density of the Most Massive Black Holes (2006, unknown): “The Zibetti et al. (2005) models of ICL show that it begins to dominate the BCGs at r 80 kpc from the BCG LAUER ET AL.810 TABLE 1 Galaxy Parameters Galaxy Morphology MV (km s 1) P r log (pc) (V Band) Alternate ID NGC 0404.................. S0 17.19 38 \ 0.23 14.62 NGC 0474.................. S0…”
A semi-analytic model for the co-evolution of galaxies, black holes and active galactic nuclei (2008, background): “There is now considerable observational evidence for spatially extended stellar components surrounding brightest group and cluster galaxies (e.g. Gonzalez, Zabludoff & Zaritsky 2005; Zibetti et al. 2005).”
The morgana model for the rise of galaxies and active nuclei (2006, background): “We anticipate that this mechanism is not very effective in galaxy clusters, where only a few per cent of the stellar mass is stripped to the halo, at variance with the 10–40 per cent found in observed clusters (Arnaboldi et al. 2003; Feldmeier et al. 2003; Gal-Yam et al. 2003; Zibetti et al. 2005).”
THE GALAXY CONTENT OF SDSS CLUSTERS AND GROUPS (2007, background): “Generally the BCG+ICL light is closely linked with cluster mass (Zibetti et al. 2005; Conroy et al. 2007; Purcell et al. 2007; Gonzalez et al. 2007).”
GALAXY CLUSTER BARYON FRACTIONS REVISITED (2013, background): “Observational constraints on ICL color gradients support this picture: the color of the ICL lies within the range found for the cluster galaxy population (Zibetti et al. 2005; T. De Maio et al., in preparation).”
Stellar Mass—Halo Mass Relation and Star Formation Efficiency in High-Mass Halos (2014, background): “…the intra-cluster light (ICL) and are estimated to contain significant fraction of the BCG mass (Gonzalez et al. 2005) and up to ∼ 20 − 40% of the total stellar mass within the virial radius (Zibetti et al. 2005; Gonzalez et al. 2007; Skibba et al. 2007; Gonzalez et al. 2013; McGee & Balogh 2010).”