Color of Dwarf Galaxies in the Coma Cluster

Abstract

We observed three 0.44 square degree fields centered on the Coma cluster center (Coma-1), about 1 degree SW of the Coma center (Coma-3), and on a control field in SA57 with the mosaic CCD camera at the prime focus of the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope. We detected 5628, 5020, and 4323 galaxies down to R = 22 mag in Coma-1, Coma-3, and SA57 fields, respectively. We measure the magnitude and color within the variable aperture r90 in which about 90% of the total flux is included. The histograms of (B–R) colors of galaxies are made for four magnitude bins of width ΔR = 2 mag covering 13 < R < 21 mag for each of the three fields. The mean colors and the 1σ scatters of the Coma galaxies are obtained by a histogram subtraction technique (Coma-1/3 minus SA57). We find a very shallow slope of the color-magnitude relation (CMR), Δ(B–R)/ΔR=−0.0037, which indicates nearly a constant (B–R) color over 6 magnitude in 15 < R < 21 mag (−19.5 < MR < −13.5 at Coma cluster). Dwarf galaxies are dominant in this magnitude range, and we conclude that the mean color of dwarf galaxies in the Coma clusters is nearly constant at (B–R) ∼ 1.6–1.7, which is similar to the color of the faint end of giant elliptical galaxies.