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The correlation between the mass of the BCG, and the mass of the cluster at the time at which it was observed. Note that all cluster masses are measured as M 200 .
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Using a sample of 98 galaxy clusters recently imaged in the near infra-red with the ESO NTT, WIYN and WHT telescopes, supplemented
with 33 clusters from the ESO archive, we measure how the stellar mass of the most massive galaxies in the universe, namely
Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCG), increases with time. Most of the BCGs in this new sample lie...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... correlation between BCG stellar mass and the mass of the host cluster is shown in Figure 3. The positive corre- lation between the two variables is quite clear -a power law fit to the relation of the form M BCG = βM α Cluster results in a best fit index of α = 0.64 ± 0.03, similar to that found by Lidman et al. (2012). ...
Context 2
... method of computing the stellar mass growth of BCGs involves comparing the median mass of BCGs in low- and high-redshift samples. The positive correlation between BCG and cluster mass, as shown in Figure 3, highlights the need to account for cluster mass when making a measure- ment of the mass differences of BCGs in different redshift intervals. ...
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Citations
... The results with an aperture cut are presented in Figure 5. At z = 3 and 5, the relations obtained from HR5 well follow the observations, while at z ∼ 1.3 and 0.6, HR5 overproduces the stellar mass on the BCG scale (M 3 × 10 11 M e ; see Bellstedt et al. 2016 for reference), compared to Behroozi et al. 2013 (gray shaded regions). HR5 seems to be comparable with the SHM relations of Kravtsov et al. (2018; open blue stars) and Golden-Marx et al. (2022; pink hatched) at the massive end, which are based on the local SDSS BCG catalogs (0 z 0.15). ...
We investigate the impact of the surface-brightness (SB) limit on the galaxy stellar mass functions (GSMFs) using galaxy catalogs generated from the Horizon Run 5 ( HR5 ) simulation. We compare the stellar-to-halo-mass relation, GSMF, and size–stellar mass relation of the HR5 galaxies with observational data and other cosmological simulations. The mean SB of simulated galaxies are computed using their effective radii, luminosities, and colors. To examine the cosmic SB dimming effect, we compute k -corrections from the spectral energy distributions of individual simulated galaxy at each redshift, apply the k -corrections to the galaxies, and conduct mock surveys based on the various SB limits. We find that the GSMFs are significantly affected by the SB limits at the low-mass end. This approach can ease the discrepancy between the GSMFs obtained from simulations and observations at 0.6 ≲ z ≤ 2. We also find that a redshift survey with an SB selection limit of μ r e = 25 mag arcsec ⁻² will miss 20% of galaxies with M ⋆ g = 10 9 M ⊙ at z = 0.625. The missing fraction of low-surface-brightness galaxies increases to 35%, 55%, and 80% at z = 0.9, 1.1, and 1.9, respectively, at the same SB limit.
... Potentially, spheroidal systems could rebuild a disk through the accretion of gas, whose angular momentum creates star formation in a disk-like structure (predicted to occur in simulations by Steinmetz & Navarro 2002, and evidence for which is potentially seen in studies by Moffett et al. 2012;Fabricius et al. 2014). Finally, galaxies may experience no morphological change with time, awith components instead growing through mechanisms like star formation (the case for disks), or via stellar mass build-up from mergers (usually for spheroidal-like structures, as is the case for the mass growth in brightest cluster galaxies since z ∼ 1 − 2 Bellstedt et al. 2016;Montenegro-Taborda et al. 2023). ...
We present the first look at star formation histories of galaxy components using ProFuse, a new technique to model the 2D distribution of light across multiple wavelengths using simultaneous spectral and spatial fitting of purely imaging data. We present a number of methods to classify galaxies structurally/morphologically, showing the similarities and discrepancies between these schemes. Rather than identifying the best-performing scheme, we use the spread of classifications to quantify uncertainty in our results. We study the cosmic star formation history (CSFH), forensically derived using ProFuse with a sample of ~7,000 galaxies from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. Remarkably, the forensic CSFH recovered via both our method (ProFuse) and traditional SED fitting (ProSpect) are not only exactly consistent with each other over the past 8 Gyr, but also with the in-situ CSFH measured using ProSpect. Furthermore, we separate the CSFH by contributions from spheroids, bulges and disks. While the vast majority (70%) of present-day star formation takes place in the disk population, we show that 50% of the stars that formed at cosmic noon (8-12 Gyr ago) now reside in spheroids, and present-day bulges are composed of stars that were primarily formed in the very early Universe, with half their stars already formed ~12 Gyr ago.
... Several studies have addressed already this issue, both from observations (e.g. Whiley et al. 2008 ;Collins et al. 2009 ;Stott et al. 2010 ;Lidman et al. 2012 ;Bellstedt et al. 2016 ;Lin et al. 2017 ;Zhang et al. 2017 ) and numerical works, such as SAMs (e.g. De Lucia & Blaizot 2007 ;Contini et al. 2014 ), SEMs , and hydrodynamic simulations (e.g. ...
The relative roles of mergers and star formation in regulating galaxy growth are still a matter of intense debate. We here present our decode, a new Discrete statistical sEmi-empiriCal mODEl specifically designed to predict rapidly and efficiently, in a full cosmological context, galaxy assembly, and merger histories for any given input stellar mass–halo mass (SMHM) relation. decode generates object-by-object dark matter merger trees (hence discrete) from accurate subhalo mass and infall redshift probability functions (hence statistical) for all subhaloes, including those residing within other subhaloes, with virtually no resolution limits on mass or volume. Merger trees are then converted into galaxy assembly histories via an input, redshift-dependent SMHM relation, which is highly sensitive to the significant systematics in the galaxy stellar mass function and on its evolution with cosmic time. decode can accurately reproduce the predicted mean galaxy merger rates and assembly histories of hydrodynamic simulations and semi-analytical models, when adopting in input their SMHM relations. In this work, we use decode to prove that only SMHM relations implied by stellar mass functions characterized by large abundances of massive galaxies and significant redshift evolution, at least at $M_\star \gtrsim 10^{11} \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$, can simultaneously reproduce the local abundances of satellite galaxies, the galaxy (major merger) pairs since z ∼ 3, and the growth of Brightest Cluster Galaxies. The same models can also reproduce the local fraction of elliptical galaxies, on the assumption that these are strictly formed by major mergers, but not the full bulge-to-disc ratio distributions, which require additional processes.
... As a final application of , we study the stellar mass growth history of BCGs, which are massive elliptical galaxies that constitutes an additional source of information for understanding the evolution of galaxies and large-scale structure. Several studies have addressed already this issue, both from observations (e.g., Whiley et al. 2008;Collins et al. 2009;Stott et al. 2010;Lidman et al. 2012;Bellstedt et al. 2016;Lin et al. 2017;Zhang et al. 2017) and numerical works, such as SAMs (e.g., De Lucia & Blaizot 2007;Contini et al. 2014), SEMs and hydrodynamic simulations (e.g., Pillepich et al. 2018b;Ragone-Figueroa et al. 2018). Here, we show the predictions of for the stellar mass assembly of BCGs and how these compare to the results from other works. ...
The relative roles of mergers and star formation in regulating galaxy growth are still a matter of intense debate. We here present our DREAM, a new DiscRete statistical sEmi-empiricAl Model specifically designed to predict rapidly and efficiently, in a full cosmological context, galaxy assembly and merger histories for any given input stellar mass-halo mass (SMHM) relation. DREAM generates object-by-object dark matter merger trees (hence discrete) from accurate subhalo mass and infall redshift probability functions (hence statistical) for all subhaloes, including those residing within other subhaloes, with virtually no resolution limits on mass or volume. Merger trees are then converted into galaxy assembly histories via an input, redshift dependent SMHM relation, which is highly sensitive to the significant systematics in the galaxy stellar mass function and on its evolution with cosmic time. DREAM can accurately reproduce the predicted mean galaxy merger rates and assembly histories of hydrodynamic simulations and semi-analytic models, when adopting in input their SMHM relations. In the present work we use DREAM to prove that only specific SMHM relations, namely those implied by stellar mass functions characterized by large abundances of massive galaxies and significant redshift evolution, can simultaneously reproduce the local abundances of satellite galaxies, the galaxy (major merger) pairs since $z \sim 3$, and the growth of Brightest Cluster Galaxies. The same models can also reproduce the local fraction of elliptical galaxies, on the assumption that these are strictly formed by major mergers, but not the full bulge-to-disc ratio distributions, which require additional processes.
... Semi-analytic models (SAMs) (e.g., De Lucia & Blaizot (2007); Tonini et al. (2012)) find that below z 1 the BCG alone grows by a factor of 2-3. This appears to be supported by observational evidence (Lidman et al. 2012), which indicates that roughly 50% of tidal remnants from mergers add to the growth of the BCG, whereas the remaining 50% ends up in the ICL, though see also Lin et al. (2013); Oliva-Altamirano et al. (2014); Bellstedt et al. (2016). Some observational studies, however, have claimed that significant amounts of in-situ star formation occurs within the BCG McDonald et al. 2016), while some simulations (Puchwein et al. 2010) indicate that a significant fraction of the ICL could possibly form in-situ as well. ...
The formation of the stellar mass within galaxy cluster cores is a poorly understood process. It features the complicated physics of cooling flows, AGN feedback, star formation and more. Here, we study the growth of the stellar mass in the vicinity of the Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG) in a z = 1.7 cluster, SpARCS1049+56. We synthesize a reanalysis of existing HST imaging, a previously published measurement of the star formation rate, and the results of new radio molecular gas spectroscopy. These analyses represent the past, present and future star formation respectively within this system. We show that a large amount of stellar mass -- between $(2.2 \pm 0.5) \times 10^{10} \: M_\odot$ and $(6.6 \pm 1.2) \times 10^{10}\: M_\odot$ depending on the data processing -- exists in a long and clumpy tail-like structure that lies roughly 12 kpc off the BCG. Spatially coincident with this stellar mass is a similarly massive reservoir ($(1.0 \pm 0.7) \times 10^{11} \: M_\odot$) of molecular gas that we suggest is the fuel for the immense star formation rate of $860 \pm 130 \: M_\odot$/yr, as measured by infrared observations. Hlavacek-Larrondo et al. 2021 surmised that massive, runaway cooling of the hot intracluster X-ray gas was feeding this star formation, a process that had not been observed before at high-redshift. We conclude, based on the amount of fuel and current stars, that this event may be rare in the lifetime of a cluster, producing roughly 15 to 21% of the Intracluster Light (ICL) mass in one go, though perhaps a common event for all galaxy clusters.
... There is a correlation between BCG stellar mass and the host cluster mass. It can be fit with a power-law of the form BCG = Cluster where BCG is the BCG stellar mass and Cluster is 200 which represents the cluster mass within 200 (Lidman et al. 2012;Bellstedt et al. 2016). Accordingly, we can check whether A407 and its BCG follow this mass relation. ...
... The predicted BCG mass follows the mass relation between BCGs and host clusters (e.g. Lidman et al. 2012;Bellstedt et al. 2016). ...
Abell 407 (A407) is a unique galaxy cluster hosting a central compact group of nine galaxies (named as 'Zwicky's Nonet'; G1 - G9 in this work) within a 30 kpc radius region. The cluster core also hosts a luminous radio active galactic nucleus (AGN), 4C 35.06 with helically twisted jets extending over 200 kpc. With a 44 ks Chandra observation of A407, we characterize the X-ray properties of its intracluster medium (ICM) and central galaxies. The mean X-ray temperature of A407 is 2.7 keV and the $M_{200}$ is $1.9 \times 10^{14} {M_{\odot}}$. We suggest that A407 has a weak cool core at $r < 60$ kpc scales and at its very center, $< 1$-2 kpc radius, a small galaxy corona associated with the strong radio AGN. We also conclude that the AGN 4C 35.06 host galaxy is most likely G3. We suggest that the central group of galaxies is undergoing a `slow merge' procedure. The range of the merging time-scale is $0.3\sim2.3$ Gyr and the stellar mass of the future brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) will be $7.4\times10^{11} M_{\odot}$. We find that the regions which overlap with the radio jets have higher temperature and metallicity. This is consistent with AGN feedback activity. The central entropy is higher than that for other clusters, which may be due to the AGN feedback and/or merging activity. With all these facts, we suggest that A407 is a unique and rare system in the local universe that could help us to understand the formation of a massive BCG.
... The stellar masses of BCGs range between 10 10.5 and 10 12.5 M and correlate with the masses of their hosting clusters (the halo mass), supporting the hypothesis that the stellar mass assembly of these galaxies is related to the assembly of the clusters in which they reside (see e.g. Brough et al. 2008 ;Lidman et al. 2012 ;Oli v a-Altamirano et al. 2014 ;Zhao, Arag ón-Salamanca & Conselice 2015 ;Bellstedt et al. 2016 ;Gozaliasl et al. 2016 ;La v oie et al. 2016 ). The stellar mass assembly of BCGs currently represents one of the open questions in galaxy evolution. ...
We study the star-formation activity in a sample of ∼ 56,000 brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) at 0.05 < z < 0.42 using optical and infra-red data from SDSS and WISE. We estimate stellar masses and star-formation rates (SFR) through SED fitting and study the evolution of the SFR with redshift as well as the effects of BCG stellar mass, cluster halo mass and cooling time on star formation. Our BCGs have SFR = 1.4 × 10−3 − 275.2 [$\rm M_{\odot }$/yr] and sSFR = 5 × 10−15 − 6 × 10−10 [yr−1] . We find that star-forming BCGs are more abundant at higher redshifts and have higher SFR than at lower redshifts. The fraction of star-forming BCGs (fSF) varies from 30 per cent to 80 per cent at 0.05 < z < 0.42. Despite the large values of fSF, we show that only 13 per cent of the BCGs lie on the star-forming main sequence for field galaxies at the same redshifts. We also find that fSF depends only weakly on $\rm M_{200}$, while it sharply decreases with $\rm M_{*}$. We finally find that the SFR in BCGs decreases with increasing $\rm t_{cool}$, suggesting that star formation is related to the cooling of the intra-cluster medium. However, we also find a weak correlation of $\rm M_{*}$ and $\rm M_{200}$ with $\rm t_{cool}$ suggesting that AGN are heating the intra-cluster gas around the BCGs. We compare our estimates of SFR with the predictions from empirical models for the evolution of the SFR with redshift, finding that the transition from a merger dominated to a cooling-dominated star formation may happen at z < 0.6.
... In parallel, the giant elliptical galaxies at the hearts of clusters grow through similar merger and accretion processes, resulting in brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) that represent the by far most massive concentrations of stars in the Universe. It has long been known that the evolution of BCGs and their host clusters are closely linked (e.g., Dressler 1984;Kormendy & Djorgovski 1989;Lin & Mohr 2004;De Lucia & Blaizot 2007;Coziol et al. 2009;Lauer et al. 2014); however, to which extent the rate of BCG evolution tracks that of the host cluster remains a subject of debate (Bellstedt et al. 2016, and references therein). ...
We report the discovery of eMACSJ0252.4$-$2100 (eMACSJ0252), a massive and highly evolved galaxy cluster at $z=0.703$. Our analysis of Hubble Space Telescope imaging and VLT/MUSE and Keck/DEIMOS spectroscopy of the system finds a high velocity dispersion of 1020$^{+180}_{-190}$ km s$^{-1}$ and a high (if tentative) X-ray luminosity of $(1.2\pm 0.4)\times10^{45}$ erg s$^{-1}$ (0.1$-$2.4 keV). As extreme is the system's brightest cluster galaxy, a giant cD galaxy that forms stars at a rate of between 85 and 300 M$_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$ and features an extended halo of diffuse [OII] emission, as well as evidence of dust. Its most remarkable properties, however, are an exceptionally high ellipticity and a radially symmetric flow of gas in the surrounding intracluster medium, potential direct kinematic evidence of a cooling flow. A strong-lensing analysis, anchored by two multiple-image systems with spectroscopic redshifts, finds the best lens model to consist of a single cluster-scale halo with a total mass of $(1.9\pm0.1)\times 10^{14}$ M$_\odot$ within 250 kpc of the cluster core and, again, an extraordinarily high ellipticity of $e=0.8$. Although further, in-depth studies across the electromagnetic spectrum (especially in the X-ray regime) are needed to conclusively determine the dynamical state of the system, the properties established so far suggest that eMACSJ0252 must have already been highly evolved well before $z\sim 1$, making it a prime target to constrain the physical mechanisms and history of the co-evolution or dark-matter halos and baryons in the era of cluster formation.
... The first method involves directly examining stellar masses of samples at different redshifts (e.g. Collins et al. 2009;Lidman et al. 2012;Oliva-Altamirano et al. 2014;Liu et al. 2015;Bellstedt et al. 2016). This is strongly dependent on the observed stellar mass-halo mass relationship. ...
Using a volume-limited sample of 550 groups from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) Galaxy Group Catalogue spanning the halo mass range $12.8 < \log [M_{h}/M] < 14.2$, we investigate the merging potential of central Brightest Group Galaxies (BGGs). We use spectroscopically-confirmed close-companion galaxies as an indication of the potential stellar mass build-up of low-redshift BGGs, $z \leq 0.2$. We identify 17 close-companion galaxies with projected separations $r_{p} < 30$ kpc, relative velocities $\Delta v \leq 300$ km s$^{-1}$, and stellar-mass ratios $M_{BGG}/M_{CC} \leq 4$ relative to the BGG. These close-companion galaxies yield a total pair fraction of $0.03 \pm 0.01$. Overall, we find that BGGs in our sample have the potential to grow in stellar mass due to mergers by $2.2 \pm 1.5\%$ Gyr$^{-1}$. This is lower than the stellar mass growth predicted by current galaxy evolution models.
... In the simulations of Conroy et al. (2007), similar fractions are achieved if all the stars from disrupted satellites end up in the ICL (their Figure 4). These results from simulations, coupled with the observed mild evolution in mass of BCGs (e.g., Whiley et al. 2008;Collins et al. 2009;Lidman et al. 2012;Oliva-Altamirano et al. 2014;Bellstedt et al. 2016), suggests that a significant fraction of the mass of infalling satellites goes to the stellar halo + ICL instead of adding a significant fraction of mass to the BCG (e.g., Laporte et al. 2013;Contini et al. 2018). ...
The study of low surface brightness light in large, deep imaging surveys is still uncharted territory as automated data reduction pipelines over-subtract or eliminate this light. Using archival data of the A85 cluster of galaxies taken with the Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope, we show that using careful data processing can unveil the diffuse light within the cluster, the intracluster light. We reach surface brightness limits of μ g(3σ, 10″ 10″) = 30.9 and μ i (3σ, 10″ 10″) = 29.7 mag arcsec-2. We measured the radial surface brightness profiles of the brightest cluster galaxy out to the intracluster light (radius ∼215 kpc) for the g and i bands. We found that both the surface brightness and the color profiles become shallower beyond ∼75 kpc suggesting that a distinct component, the intracluster light, starts to dominate at that radius. The color of the profile at ∼100 kpc suggests that the buildup of the intracluster light of A85 occurs by the stripping of massive (∼1010 M o˙) satellites. The measured fraction of this light ranges from 8%-30% in g, depending on the definition of intracluster light chosen. © 2021. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
