J/ApJS/267/41 Ellipticals and brightest cluster galaxies param. (Kluge+, 2023)
Minor mergers are not enough: the importance of major mergers during brightest
cluster galaxy assembly.
Kluge M., Bender R.
<Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 267, 41 (2023)>
=2023ApJS..267...41K 2023ApJS..267...41K
ADC_Keywords: Spectra, optical; Galaxies, interacting; Velocity dispersion;
Line Profiles; Galaxies, photometry; Galaxies, radius; Morphology;
Redshifts
Keywords: Galaxy formation ; Scaling relations ; Elliptical galaxies ;
Galaxy photometry ; Galaxy spectroscopy
Abstract:
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 Digital Sky Survey data, we find that
BCGs and luminous normal ellipticals (LNEs) have similar central
velocity dispersions, central absorption line strengths, and central
surface brightnesses. However, BCGs are more luminous due to their
much larger radial extent. These properties result in a flattening of
the Faber-Jackson and Mgb-luminosity relations above
1010.6L☉,g'. We use this effect to estimate an amount of
60%-80% of accreted and merged light in BCGs relative to LNEs, which
agrees with results from cosmological simulations. We determine the
contribution of this excess light (EL) at each radius from the
difference between the surface flux profiles of BCGs and LNEs. It is
small in the center but increases steeply to 50% at ∼3kpc radius. The
shape of these profiles suggests that BCGs could be formed from LNEs
in three major merger processes. This is also consistent with the mild
increase of the Sersic indices from n∼4 to n∼6, as confirmed in merger
simulations. We note that minor mergers cannot be the dominant origin
of the BCG's EL because they deposit too few stars at intermediate
radii r≲20kpc. The shape of the EL profile also explains a detected
offset of 0.14dex of the fundamental planes for BCGs and LNEs relative
to each other.
Description:
Observations of 75 brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) were obtained
with the low-resolution spectrograph LRS2 on the 11m Hobby Eberly
Telescope (HET) at the McDonald Observatory, Texas between 2017 April
and 2020 April. See Section 4.
We extend the sample with 40 BCGs that have SDSS spectra available.
Photometric BCG parameters are not adopted from
Kluge+ (2020, J/ApJS/247/43) but measured anew along the effective
axis instead of the major axis. See Section 2.
We need a reference sample of non-BCGs, which we refer to as "normal
ellipticals". Zhu+ (2010ApJ...722..491Z 2010ApJ...722..491Z) provided a catalog of
1923 SDSS-DR6-selected elliptical galaxies. We download the SDSS DR17
images and spectra and refit the parameters with our algorithms. After
discarding problematic cases (see Section 3.1), we end up with a
sample of 1420 SDSS galaxies. See Section 2.
File Summary:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ReadMe 80 . This file
table7.dat 67 1420 Structural parameters and velocity dispersion
of normal ellipticals
table8.dat 62 115 Structural parameters and velocity dispersion
of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs)
table9.dat 449 1906 Absorption line strengths and velocity dispersions
of normal ellipticals
table10.dat 423 115 Absorption line strengths and velocity dispersions
of BCGs
sp/* . 150 Individual LRS2 UV and orange spectra
in ASCII format for 75 BCGs (Data behind Figure 15)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also:
V/154 : Sloan Digital Sky Surveys (SDSS), Release 16 (DR16) (Ahumada+, 2020)
III/284 : APOGEE-2 data from DR16 (Johnsson+, 2020)
J/ApJS/94/687 : Old stellar populations. V. (Worthey+, 1994)
J/MNRAS/276/1341 : Spectroscopy of E and S0 galaxies (Jorgensen+, 1995)
J/ApJ/621/673 : Line indices for 124 early-type galaxies (Thomas+, 2005)
J/MNRAS/371/703 : MILES library of empirical spectra (Sanchez-Blazquez+, 2006)
J/ApJ/662/808 : Cusp radius in luminous elliptical galaxies (Lauer+, 2007)
J/MNRAS/379/867 : BCG C4 cluster catalog (von der Linden+, 2007)
J/AJ/135/1837 : Spectroscopy in A2199 and Virgo clusters (Rines+, 2008)
J/MNRAS/397/75 : Fundamental Plane analysis in Shapley (Gargiulo+, 2009)
J/ApJS/182/216 : Surface photometry of Virgo ellipticals (Kormendy+, 2009)
J/A+A/524/A6 : Evolution of spectral early-type galaxies (Saglia+, 2010)
J/ApJ/797/82 : Brightest cluster galaxies in Abell clusters (Lauer+, 2014)
J/MNRAS/446/3943 : Galaxies 2D phot. decompositions in SDSS-DR7 (Meert+, 2015)
J/MNRAS/458/1590 : Deep spectroscopy of Abell 85 (Agulli+, 2016)
J/A+A/609/A78 : MUSE combined data cubes for NGC 3311 (Barbosa+, 2018)
J/A+A/627/A138 : XSL atmospheric parameters (Arentsen+, 2019)
J/A+A/634/A133 : X-Shooter Spectral Library (XSL). DR2 (Gonneau+, 2020)
J/ApJS/247/43 : WWFI g'-band obs. of bright cluster galaxies (Kluge+, 2020)
J/ApJS/252/27 : WWFI g'-band obs. of bright galaxy clusters (Kluge+, 2021)
J/ApJ/909/74 : The Dragonfly Wide Field Survey. II. (Miller+, 2021)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table7.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 4 I4 --- ID [1/1923] Galaxy ID in
Zhu+ (2010ApJ...722..491Z 2010ApJ...722..491Z)
6- 11 F6.4 [km/s] logsigma [1.8/2.6] Central stellar velocity
dispersion corrected to re/8, log
13- 18 F6.4 [km/s] e_logsigma [0.006/0.2] Error on logsigma
20- 24 F5.3 [kpc] logre [0.003/1.8] Effective radius, log
26- 30 F5.3 [kpc] e_logre [0.003/0.2] Error of effective radius
32- 37 F6.3 mag.arcsec-2 msbe [19.39/24.23] Average effective
surface brightness (g-band)
39- 43 F5.3 mag.arcsec-2 e_msbe [0.016/0.9] Error on msbe
45- 51 F7.3 mag Mtot [-23.5/-18.5] Absolute total
brightness (g-band magnitude)
53- 57 F5.3 mag e_Mtot [0.007/0.4] Error on Mtot
59- 62 F4.2 --- n [0.5/8] Sersic index
64- 67 F4.2 --- e_n [0.02/4] Error of Sersic index
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table8.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 5 A5 --- Cl Cluster name (G1)
6- 12 F7.4 [km/s] logsigma [2.2/2.6] Central stellar velocity
dispersion corrected to re/8, log
13- 19 F7.4 [km/s] e_logsigma [0.007/0.05] Error of central stellar
velocity dispersion
20- 25 F6.3 [kpc] logre [0.78/3.05] Effective radius, log
26- 31 F6.3 [kpc] e_logre [0.002/0.61] Error of effective radius
32- 38 F7.3 mag.arcsec-2 msbe [20.6/27.7] Average effective surface
brightness (g-band)
39- 44 F6.3 mag.arcsec-2 e_msbe [0.009/2.6] Error of average effective
surface brightness
45- 52 F8.3 mag Mtot [-26/-21.2] Absolute total brightness
(g-band magnitude)
53- 58 F6.3 mag e_Mtot [0.001/0.2] Error of absolute total
brightness
60- 61 A2 --- sp LRS2 spectrum available in subdirectory
"sp"; column added by CDS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table9.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 4 I4 --- ID [1/1925] Galaxy ID
in Zhu+ (2010ApJ...722..491Z 2010ApJ...722..491Z)
6- 13 F8.4 deg RAdeg Right Ascension (J2000)
15- 22 F8.4 deg DEdeg [-11/68] Declination (J2000)
24- 30 F7.5 --- zspec [0.002/0.06] Spectroscopic redshift
32- 36 F5.1 km/s sigma [25/346] Central stellar velocity dispersion
in 3" diameter aperture
38- 41 F4.1 km/s e_sigma [5/94] Error in sigma
43- 48 F6.3 0.1nm Hbeta [-0.5/4.4] Line strength, Hβ (G2)
51- 55 F5.3 0.1nm e_Hbeta [0.05/3] Uncertainty in Hβ
57- 62 F6.3 0.1nm Hgamma-F [-3.3/5.2]? Line strength, Hγ-F (G2)
65- 69 F5.3 0.1nm e_Hgamma-F [0.007/2]? Uncertainty in Hγ-F
71- 76 F6.3 0.1nm HdeltaEW [-5.1/7.1]? Line strength, HδEW (G2)
79- 83 F5.3 0.1nm e_HdeltaEW [0.01/9]? Uncertainty in HδEW
85- 89 F5.3 mag Mg-1 [0.007/0.2]? Line strength, Mg-1 (G2)
91- 95 F5.3 mag e_Mg-1 [0.002/0.03]? Uncertainty in Mg-1
97-101 F5.3 mag Mg-2 [0.05/0.4]? Line strength, Mg-2 (G2)
103-107 F5.3 mag e_Mg-2 [0.002/0.04]? Uncertainty in Mg-2
109-113 F5.3 0.1nm Mg-b [0.4/5.4] Line strength, Mg-b (G2)
115-119 F5.3 0.1nm e_Mg-b [0.06/1.5] Uncertainty in Mg-b
121-126 F6.3 0.1nm Mg4780 [-0.95/2.2] Line strength, Mg4780 (G2)
129-133 F5.3 0.1nm e_Mg4780 [0.01/2] Uncertainty in Mg4780
135-140 F6.3 0.1nm Fe4383 [-1.51/7.4] Line strength, Fe4383 (G2)
142-146 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe4383 [0.1/4.1] Uncertainty in Fe4383
148-153 F6.3 0.1nm Fe4531 [-0.3/4.8] Line strength, Fe4531 (G2)
155-159 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe4531 [0.09/3.2] Uncertainty in Fe4531
161-166 F6.3 0.1nm Fe4668 [-3.9/10] Line strength, Fe4668 (G2)
168-172 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe4668 [0.1/5] Uncertainty in Fe4668
174-179 F6.3 0.1nm Fe5015 [-2/6.8] Line strength, Fe5015 (G2)
181-185 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5015 [0.13/3] Uncertainty in Fe5015
187-191 F5.3 0.1nm Fe5270 [0.4/4.2]? Line strength, Fe5270 (G2)
193-197 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5270 [0.05/1.6]? Uncertainty in Fe5270
199-203 F5.3 0.1nm Fe5335 [0.3/3.3]? Line strength, Fe5335 (G2)
205-209 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5335 [0.09/3.3]? Uncertainty in Fe5335
211-216 F6.3 0.1nm Fe5406 [-1.9/3.2]? Line strength, Fe5406 (G2)
219-223 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5406 [0.09/5]? Uncertainty in Fe5406
225-230 F6.3 0.1nm Fe5709 [-0.6/1.5]? Line strength, Fe5709 (G2)
232-236 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5709 [0.05/1.3]? Uncertainty in Fe5709
238-243 F6.3 0.1nm Fe5782 [-0.97/1.6]? Line strength, Fe5782 (G2)
245-249 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5782 [0.05/1]? Uncertainty in Fe5782
251-256 F6.3 0.1nm Ca4227 [-0.001/3.1]? Line strength, Ca4227 (G2)
258-262 F5.3 0.1nm e_Ca4227 [0.04/1.6]? Uncertainty in Ca4227
264-269 F6.3 0.1nm Ca4455 [-3.51/2.5] Line strength, Ca4455 (G2)
271-275 F5.3 0.1nm e_Ca4455 [0.05/1.5] Uncertainty in Ca4455
277-282 F6.3 0.1nm CaHK-LB13 [-0.12/32.4]? Line strength, CaHK-LB13 (G2)
284-288 F5.3 0.1nm e_CaHK-LB13 [0.3/9]? Uncertainty in CaHK-LB13
290-295 F6.3 0.1nm Ca1-LB13 [-2.7/3.8]? Line strength, Ca1-LB13 (G2)
297-301 F5.3 0.1nm e_Ca1-LB13 [0.097/3.5]? Uncertainty in Ca1-LB13
303-308 F6.3 0.1nm Ca2-LB13 [-0.7/8.2]? Line strength, Ca2-LB13 (G2)
310-314 F5.3 0.1nm e_Ca2-LB13 [0.12/9.3]? Uncertainty in Ca2-LB13
316-321 F6.3 0.1nm Ca3-LB13 [-1.6/7]? Line strength, Ca3-LB13 (G2)
323-327 F5.3 0.1nm e_Ca3-LB13 [0.12/3.5]? Uncertainty in Ca3-LB13
329-333 F5.3 0.1nm Na-D [0.24/7.7]? Line strength, Na, D line(G2)
335-339 F5.3 0.1nm e_Na-D [0.07/1.7]? Uncertainty in Na-D
341-346 F6.3 0.1nm NaI-LB13 [-1.9/1.4]? Line strength, NaI-LB13 (G2)
349-353 F5.3 0.1nm e_NaI-LB13 [0.04/1.5]? Uncertainty in NaI-LB13
355-361 F7.3 0.1nm bTiO [-17.4/3.4] Line strength, bTiO (G2)
363-368 F6.3 0.1nm e_bTiO [0.06/17.1] Uncertainty in bTiO
370-375 F6.3 mag aTiO [-0.03/0.04]? Line strength, aTiO (G2)
378-382 F5.3 mag e_aTiO [0/0.1]? Uncertainty in aTiO
384-389 F6.3 mag TiO-1 [-0.013/0.07]? Line strength, TiO-1 (G2)
391-395 F5.3 mag e_TiO-1 [0.002/0.02]? Uncertainty in TiO-1
397-401 F5.3 mag TiO-2 [0/0.11]? Line strength, TiO-2 (G2)
403-407 F5.3 mag e_TiO-2 [0.002/0.03]? Uncertainty in TiO-2
409-414 F6.3 mag TiO-4 [-0.05/0.08]? Line strength, TiO-4 (G2)
416-420 F5.3 mag e_TiO-4 [0.002/0.05]? Uncertainty in TiO-4
422-427 F6.3 mag CN-1 [-0.3/0.9]? Line strength, CN-1 (G2)
430-434 F5.3 mag e_CN-1 [0/1.7]? Uncertainty in CN-1
436-441 F6.3 0.1nm G4300 [-1.6/8.2]? Line strength, G4300 (G2)
443-449 F7.3 0.1nm e_G4300 [0.08/2.8]? Uncertainty in G4300
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table10.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 5 A5 --- Cl Cluster name (G1)
7- 14 F8.4 deg RAdeg Right Ascension (J2000)
16- 22 F7.4 deg DEdeg [-9.4/67.3] Declination (J2000)
24- 24 A1 --- Set S=SDSS, W=Wendelstein Wide Field Imager
26- 32 F7.5 --- zspec [0.016/0.16] Spectroscopic redshift
34- 38 F5.1 km/s sigma [183/395]? Central stellar velocity
dispersion in 3" diameter aperture
40- 43 F4.1 km/s e_sigma [2.9/80]? Error in sigma
45- 49 F5.3 0.1nm Hbeta [0.98/2.4]? Line strength, Hβ (G2)
51- 55 F5.3 0.1nm e_Hbeta [0.03/0.5]? Uncertainty in Hβ
57- 62 F6.3 0.1nm Hgamma-F [-2.8/-0.6]? Line strength, Hγ-F (G2)
64- 68 F5.3 0.1nm e_Hgamma-F [0.05/0.7]? Uncertainty in Hγ-F
70- 75 F6.3 0.1nm HdeltaEW [-4/2.7]? Line strength, HδEW (G2)
77- 81 F5.3 0.1nm e_HdeltaEW [0.09/1]? Uncertainty in HδEW
83- 87 F5.3 mag Mg-1 [0.1/0.17]? Line strength, Mg-1 (G2)
89- 93 F5.3 mag e_Mg-1 [0.001/0.005]? Uncertainty in Mg-1
95- 99 F5.3 mag Mg-2 [0.26/0.34]? Line strength, Mg-2 (G2)
101-105 F5.3 mag e_Mg-2 [0.001/0.008]? Uncertainty in Mg-2
107-111 F5.3 0.1nm Mg-b [3.4/5.3]? Line strength, Mg-b (G2)
113-117 F5.3 0.1nm e_Mg-b [0.03/0.5]? Uncertainty in Mg-b
119-124 F6.3 0.1nm Mg4780 [-0.12/2] Line strength, Mg4780 (G2)
126-130 F5.3 0.1nm e_Mg4780 [0.04/0.5] Uncertainty in Mg4780
132-136 F5.3 0.1nm Fe4383 [3.6/6.3]? Line strength, Fe4383 (G2)
138-142 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe4383 [0.14/1.1]? Uncertainty in Fe4383
144-148 F5.3 0.1nm Fe4531 [1.49/4.9]? Line strength, Fe4531 (G2)
150-154 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe4531 [0.08/0.7]? Uncertainty in Fe4531
156-160 F5.3 0.1nm Fe4668 [4.6/9.3]? Line strength, Fe4668 (G2)
162-166 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe4668 [0.09/1]? Uncertainty in Fe4668
168-172 F5.3 0.1nm Fe5015 [3.8/7.2]? Line strength, Fe5015 (G2)
174-178 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5015 [0.06/0.9]? Uncertainty in Fe5015
180-184 F5.3 0.1nm Fe5270 [2/3.7]? Line strength, Fe5270 (G2)
186-190 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5270 [0.03/0.5]? Uncertainty in Fe5270
192-196 F5.3 0.1nm Fe5335 [1.69/3.3]? Line strength, Fe5335 (G2)
198-202 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5335 [0.04/1]? Uncertainty in Fe5335
204-208 F5.3 0.1nm Fe5406 [0.6/3.1]? Line strength, Fe5406 (G2)
210-214 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5406 [0.03/0.9]? Uncertainty in Fe5406
216-220 F5.3 0.1nm Fe5709 [0.17/1.4]? Line strength, Fe5709 (G2)
222-226 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5709 [0.03/0.3]? Uncertainty in Fe5709
228-232 F5.3 0.1nm Fe5782 [0.25/1.7]? Line strength, Fe5782 (G2)
234-238 F5.3 0.1nm e_Fe5782 [0.02/0.3]? Uncertainty in Fe5782
240-244 F5.3 0.1nm Ca4227 [0.5/1.8]? Line strength, Ca4227 (G2)
246-250 F5.3 0.1nm e_Ca4227 [0.04/0.4]? Uncertainty in Ca4227
252-256 F5.3 0.1nm Ca4455 [0.7/2]? Line strength, Ca4455 (G2)
258-262 F5.3 0.1nm e_Ca4455 [0.07/0.5]? Uncertainty in Ca4455
264-269 F6.3 0.1nm CaHK-LB13 [2.4/24.3]? Line strength, CaHK-LB13 (G2)
271-275 F5.3 0.1nm e_CaHK-LB13 [0.19/3]? Uncertainty in CaHK-LB13
277-282 F6.3 0.1nm Ca1-LB13 [-0.52/2.5]? Line strength, Ca1-LB13 (G2)
284-288 F5.3 0.1nm e_Ca1-LB13 [0.09/1.2]? Uncertainty in Ca1-LB13
290-294 F5.3 0.1nm Ca2-LB13 [1.7/7.8]? Line strength, Ca2-LB13 (G2)
296-300 F5.3 0.1nm e_Ca2-LB13 [0.13/2]? Uncertainty in Ca2-LB13
302-307 F6.3 0.1nm Ca3-LB13 [-3.9/7.7]? Line strength, Ca3-LB13 (G2)
309-313 F5.3 0.1nm e_Ca3-LB13 [0.1/1.8]? Uncertainty in Ca3-LB13
315-319 F5.3 0.1nm Na-D [3.6/6.5]? Line strength, Na, D line(G2)
321-325 F5.3 0.1nm e_Na-D [0.024/0.6]? Uncertainty in Na-D
327-332 F6.3 0.1nm NaI-LB13 [-1.02/1.5]? Line strength, NaI-LB13 (G2)
334-338 F5.3 0.1nm e_NaI-LB13 [0.04/0.9]? Uncertainty in NaI-LB13
340-345 F6.3 0.1nm bTiO [-0.4/2]? Line strength, bTiO (G2)
347-351 F5.3 0.1nm e_bTiO [0.04/0.6]? Uncertainty in bTiO
353-357 F5.3 mag aTiO [0.009/0.04]? Line strength, aTiO (G2)
359-363 F5.3 mag e_aTiO [0.001/0.008]? Uncertainty in aTiO
365-369 F5.3 mag TiO-1 [0.025/0.06]? Line strength, TiO-1 (G2)
371-375 F5.3 mag e_TiO-1 [0.001/0.005]? Uncertainty in TiO-1
377-381 F5.3 mag TiO-2 [0.06/0.15]? Line strength, TiO-2 (G2)
383-387 F5.3 mag e_TiO-2 [0.001/0.007]? Uncertainty in TiO-2
389-393 F5.3 mag TiO-4 [0.009/0.13]? Line strength, TiO-4 (G2)
395-399 F5.3 mag e_TiO-4 [0.001/0.02]? Uncertainty in TiO-4
401-405 F5.3 mag CN-1 [0.02/0.21]? Line strength, CN-1 (G2)
407-411 F5.3 mag e_CN-1 [0.002/0.03]? Uncertainty in CN-1
413-417 F5.3 0.1nm G4300 [3/6.7]? Line strength, G4300 (G2)
419-423 F5.3 0.1nm e_G4300 [0.08/0.8]? Uncertainty in G4300
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: sp/*
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 8 F8.6 [0.1nm] lnLambda [8/8.7] Natural log, rest-frame wavelength,
in Å
10- 18 F9.6 --- Flux [-0.5/6.8] Normalized flux
20- 28 E9.6 --- Xtemp-gas [-0.012/1.6] X-shooter stellar broadened
template with gas emission
29- 38 E10.6 --- Xtemp-nogas [-0.012/1.6] X-shooter stellar broadened
template without gas emission
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Global notes:
Note (G1): Sources for cluster name prefix:
A = 1989ApJS...70....1A 1989ApJS...70....1A ( in Simbad; Cat. VII/110)
AWM = 1977ApJ...211..309A 1977ApJ...211..309A
L = 2007MNRAS.379..867V 2007MNRAS.379..867V (<SDSS-C4-DR3 NNNN> in Simbad; Cat. J/MNRAS/379/867)
MKW = 1975ApJ...199..545M 1975ApJ...199..545M
Note (G2): Line identifier names are from the Lick indices:
http://mfouesneau.github.io/pyphot/licks.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acknowledgements:
Matthias Kluge [mkluge at mpe.mpg.de]
History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 15-Nov-2023