Globular Cluster Systems in Four Brightest Cluster Galaxies: A262, A3560, A3565, and A3742

Abstract

We have used deep I-band (F814W) images from the Space Telescope archive to study the globular cluster systems around the brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) in A262, A3560, A3565, and A3742. Three of these BCGs have inner dust lanes and peculiar structural features that indicate past histories of low-level interaction and accretion. The deep I-band WFPC2 images have photometric limits that, for all four galaxies, reach near or just beyond the globular cluster luminosity function (GCLF) turnover point. Their specific frequencies are 8.24 ± 1.65, 4.66 ± 0.93, 2.58 ± 0.52, and 2.62 ± 0.52, respectively, all within a factor of 2 of the normal range for giant elliptical galaxies. We obtain new estimates of the GCLF turnover magnitudes, which are shown to be consistent with an adopted constant of H0 70 km s-1 Mpc-1 on the Hubble diagram of GCLF turnover apparent magnitude versus redshift, on a distance scale where the fundamental GCLF calibrator E galaxies (M87 and others) in Virgo are at d = 16 Mpc.