The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey. Viii. The Spatial Distribution of Globular Clusters in the Virgo Cluster

Durrell, Patrick R.; Côté, Patrick; Peng, Eric W.; Blakeslee, John P.; Ferrarese, Laura; Mihos, J. Christopher; Puzia, Thomas H.; Lançon, A.; Liu, Chengze; Zhang, Hongxin; Cuillandre, Jean-Charles; McConnachie, Alan W.; Jordán, Andrés; Accetta, Katharine; Boissier, S.; Boselli, A.; Courteau, Stéphane; Duc, Pierre–Alain; Emsellem, Éric; Gwyn, Stephen; Mei, S.; Taylor, James E.

doi:10.1088/0004-637x/794/2/103

Cited by 140 publications

(224 citation statements)

References 158 publications

(236 reference statements)

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“…Therefore dwarf galaxies may not be significant contributors to the population of intra-cluster globular clusters found in the Virgo cluster (e.g. Williams et al 2007;Lee et al 2010;Durrell et al 2014). For dwarf galaxies that are infalling into the cluster for the first time, the mass-loss can be expected to be even weaker.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The sensitivity of harassment to orbit: mass loss from early-type dwarfs in galaxy clusters

Smith

Sánchéz-Janssen

Beasley

et al. 2015

Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.

119

125

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We conduct a comprehensive numerical study of the orbital dependence of harassment on early-type dwarfs consisting of 168 different orbits within a realistic, Virgo-like cluster, varying in eccentricity and pericentre distance. We find harassment is only effective at stripping stars or truncating their stellar disks for orbits that enter deep into the cluster core. Comparing to the orbital distribution in cosmological simulations, we find that the majority of the orbits (more than three quarters) result in no stellar mass loss. We also study the effects on the radial profiles of the globular cluster systems of early-type dwarfs. We find these are significantly altered only if harassment is very strong. This suggests that perhaps most early-type dwarfs in clusters such as Virgo have not suffered any tidal stripping of stars or globular clusters due to harassment, as these components are safely embedded deep within their dark matter halo. We demonstrate that this result is actually consistent with an earlier study of harassment of dwarf galaxies, despite the apparent contradiction. Those few dwarf models that do suffer stellar stripping are found out to the virial radius of the cluster at redshift=0, which mixes them in with less strongly harassed galaxies. However when placed on phase-space diagrams, strongly harassed galaxies are found offset to lower velocities compared to weakly harassed galaxies. This remains true in a cosmological simulation, even when halos have a wide range of masses and concentrations. Thus phase-space diagrams may be a useful tool for determining the relative likelihood that galaxies have been strongly or weakly harassed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The sensitivity of harassment to orbit: mass loss from early-type dwarfs in galaxy clusters

Smith

Sánchéz-Janssen

Beasley

et al. 2015

Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.

119

125

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“…For galaxies in the local universe ( 30 Mpc), the properties of the stellar halos can also be addressed using discrete tracers such as globular clusters (GCs) and planetary nebulae (PNe). Observations show that the red GC populations have numberdensity profiles consistent with that of the stars in the parent galaxy, while the blue GCs are spatially more extended in the intracluster space and trace the metal-poor component of the halo (Forbes et al 2012;Pota et al 2013;Durrell et al 2014;Cantiello et al 2015;Hilker et al 2015). In the Hydra cluster, the location of blue GCs coincides with a group of dwarf galaxies under disruption, suggesting a young stellar halo that is still forming (Arnaboldi et al 2012;Hilker et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

THE FORNAX DEEP SURVEY WITH VST. I. THE EXTENDED AND DIFFUSE STELLAR HALO OF NGC 1399 OUT TO 192 kpc

Iodice

Capaccioli

Grado

et al. 2016

ApJ

174

342

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We have started a new, deep multi-imaging survey of the Fornax cluster, dubbed the Fornax Deep Survey (FDS), at the VLT Survey Telescope (VST). In this paper we present the deep photometry inside two square degrees around the bright galaxy NGC1399 in the core of the cluster. We found that the core of the Fornax cluster is characterized by a very extended and diffuse envelope surrounding the luminous galaxy NGC1399: we map the surface brightness out to 33 arcmin (∼192 kpc) from the galaxy center and down to μ g ∼31 mag arcsec −2 in the g band. The deep photometry allows us to detect a faint stellar bridge in the intracluster region on the west side of NGC1399 and toward NGC1387. By analyzing the integrated colors of this feature, we argue that it could be due to the ongoing interaction between the two galaxies, where the outer envelope of NGC1387 on its east side is stripped away. By fitting the light profile, we found that there exists a physical break radius in the total light distribution at R=10 arcmin (∼58 kpc) that sets the transition region between the bright central galaxy and the outer exponential halo, and that the stellar halo contributes 60% of the total light of the galaxy (Section 3.5). We discuss the main implications of this work on the build-up of the stellar halo at the center of the Fornax cluster. By comparing with the numerical simulations of the stellar halo formation for the most massive bright cluster galaxies (i.e., M M 13 log 14, we find that the observed stellar halo mass fraction is consistent with a halo formed through the multiple accretion of progenitors with stellar mass in the range 10 8 -10 11 M e . This might suggest that the halo of NGC1399 has also gone through a major merging event. The absence of a significant number of luminous stellar streams and tidal tails out to 192 kpc suggests that the epoch of this strong interaction goes back to an early formation epoch. Therefore, different from the Virgo cluster, the extended stellar halo around NGC1399 is characterized by a more diffuse and well-mixed component, including the intracluster light.

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“…The recent survey of the GC population in the Virgo cluster around M 87 by Durrell et al (2014) showed the presence of an ICGC population, mostly associated with blue GCs (see further discussion in Sect. 6.3).…”

Section: Icl In Virgo: Nature and Number Of Its Progenitor Galaxiesmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…We can now also check whether the Virgo ICL associated with the ICPN population could be related to the blue GC population that is found around M 87, that has a shallower and more extended surface density profile than the red GCs, which trace the stellar halo light (Côté et al 2001;Tamura et al 2006;Strader et al 2011;Forte et al 2012;Durrell et al 2014). To do this, we need to estimate the total number of GCs associated with M 33 and LMC-like systems.…”

Section: Icl In Virgo: Nature and Number Of Its Progenitor Galaxiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The outer regions of the giant Virgo galaxy M 87 Kinematic separation of stellar halo and intracluster light

Longobardi

Arnaboldi

Gerhard

et al. 2015

A&A

144

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Aims. We present a spectroscopic study of a sample of 287 planetary nebulas (PNs) around the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) M 87 in Virgo A, of which 211 are located between 40 kpc and 150 kpc from the galaxy centre. With these data we can distinguish the stellar halo from the co-spatial intracluster light (ICL) and study both components separately. Methods. We obtained PN velocities with a high resolution FLAMES/VLT survey targeting eight fields in a total area of ∼0.4 deg 2 . We identified PNs from their narrow and symmetric redshifted λ5007 Å [OIII] emission line, the presence of the second λ4959 Å [OIII] emission line, and the absence of significant continuum. We implement a robust technique to measure the halo velocity dispersion from the projected phase-space to identify PNs associated with the M 87 halo and ICL. Using photometric magnitudes, we construct PN luminosity functions (PNLFs), which are complete down to m 5007 = 28.8. Results. The velocity distribution of the spectroscopically confirmed PNs is bimodal, containing a narrow component centred on the systemic velocity of the BCG and an off-centred broader component, which we identify as halo and ICL, respectively. We find that 243 PNs are part of the velocity distribution of the M 87 halo, while the remaining subsample of 44 PNs are intracluster PNs (ICPNs). Halo and ICPNs have different spatial distributions: the number density of halo PNs follow the galaxy's surface brightness profile, whereas the ICPNs are characterised by a shallower power-law profile, I ICL ∝ R γ with γ in the range [−0.34, −0.04]. No evidence is found for an asymmetry in the halo and ICPN density distributions when the NW and SE fields are studied separately. A study of the composite PN number density profile confirms the superposition of different PN populations associated with the M 87 halo and the ICL, characterised by different PN specific numbers α. We derive α halo = 1.06 × 10 −8 N PN L −1 ,bol and α ICL = 2.72 × 10 −8 N PN L −1 ,bol , respectively. The M 87 halo PNLF has fewer bright PNs and a steeper slope towards faint magnitudes than the ICPNLF, and both are steeper than the standard PNLF for the M 31 bulge. Moreover, the ICPNLF has a dip at ∼1−1.5 mag fainter than the bright cut-off, reminiscent of the PNLFs of systems with extended star formation history, such as M 33 or the Magellanic clouds. Conclusions. The BCG halo of M 87 and the Virgo ICL are dynamically distinct components with different density profiles and velocity distributions. Moreover, the different α-parameter values and PNLF shapes of the halo and ICL indicate distinct parent stellar populations, consistent with the existence of a gradient towards bluer colours at large radii. These results reflect the hierarchical build-up of the Virgo cluster.

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The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey. Viii. The Spatial Distribution of Globular Clusters in the Virgo Cluster

Cited by 140 publications

References 158 publications

The sensitivity of harassment to orbit: mass loss from early-type dwarfs in galaxy clusters

The sensitivity of harassment to orbit: mass loss from early-type dwarfs in galaxy clusters

THE FORNAX DEEP SURVEY WITH VST. I. THE EXTENDED AND DIFFUSE STELLAR HALO OF NGC 1399 OUT TO 192 kpc

The outer regions of the giant Virgo galaxy M 87 Kinematic separation of stellar halo and intracluster light

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