Dressler-Shectman Test Research Articles

Is A2261 a Fossil Galaxy Cluster in a Transitional Dynamical State?

Abstract Fossil cluster A2261 is well studied, but previous studies give contradictory results on its dynamical states, such as its X-ray central entropy and magnitude gap. To improve our understanding of its dynamical state, we conduct multiobject spectroscopic observations with Hectospec on the MMT, covering an area out to 5 virial radii from the cluster center, and get improved completeness and membership. Using these new data, we calculate multiple dynamical indicators, including Gaussianity, distance offset, and velocity offset. These indicators suggest that A2261 is moderately relaxed. However, a Dressler–Shectman test reveals a group candidate to the south at a projected distance that is near the virial radius and overlaps with an X-ray tail-like feature. One of the galaxies associated with that group would be sufficiently bright to reduce the fossil magnitude gap. This raises the possibility that A2261 could have recently transited in fossil status, if the group had previously crossed the cluster and is only now found outside. In the cluster outskirts, we see an extended feature of galaxies located on the opposite side of the cluster from the group candidate. On even larger scales, we find that this feature connects, both on the sky and in velocity space, with a long (4.4 Mpc) filamentary structure in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data. This could support the idea that a group was fed into the cluster through the filament, temporarily breaking the fossil status and resulting in a minor merger that weakly disturbed the intracluster medium of the cluster.

H I content in Coma cluster substructure

Context. Galaxy clusters are some of largest structures in the universe. These very dense environments tend to be home to higher numbers of evolved galaxies than found in lower-density environments. It is well known that dense environments can influence the evolution of galaxies through the removal of the neutral gas (H I) reservoirs that fuel star formation. It is unclear which environment has a stronger effect: the local environment (i.e., the substructure within the cluster), or the cluster itself. Aims. Using the new H I data from the Westerbork Coma Survey, we explore the average H I content of galaxies across the cluster comparing galaxies that reside in substructure to those that do not. Methods. We applied the Dressler–Shectman test to our newly compiled redshift catalogue of the Coma cluster to search for substructure. With so few of the Coma galaxies directly detected in H I, we used the H I stacking technique to probe the average H I content below what can be directly detected. Results. Using the Dressler–Shectman test, we find 15 substructures within the footprint of the Westerbork Coma Survey. We compare the average H I content for galaxies within substructure to those not in substructure. Using the H I stacking technique, we find that those Coma galaxies not detected in H I are more than 10–50 times more H I deficient than expected, which supports the scenario of an extremely efficient and rapid quenching mechanism. By studying the galaxies that are not directly detected in H I, we also find Coma to be more H I deficient than previously thought.

RECENT GALAXY MERGERS AND RESIDUAL STAR FORMATION OF RED SEQUENCE GALAXIES IN GALAXY CLUSTERS

ABSTRACT This study explored the Galaxy Evolution Explorer ultraviolet (UV) properties of optical red sequence galaxies in four rich Abell clusters at . In particular, we tried to find a hint of merger-induced recent star formation (RSF) in red sequence galaxies. Using the NUV colors of the galaxies, RSF fractions were derived based on various criteria for post-merger galaxies and normal galaxies. Following k-correction, about 36% of the post-merger galaxies were classified as RSF galaxies with a conservative criterion (NUV ), and that number was doubled (∼72%) when using a generous criterion (NUV ). The trend was the same when we restricted the sample to galaxies within 0.5 × R 200. Post-merger galaxies with strong UV emission showed more violent, asymmetric features in the deep optical images. The RSF fractions did not show any trend along the clustocentric distance within R 200. We performed a Dressler–Shectman test to check whether the RSF galaxies had any correlation with the substructures in the galaxy clusters. Within R 200 of each cluster, the RSF galaxies did not appear to be preferentially related to the clusters’ substructures. Our results suggested that only 30% of RSF red sequence galaxies show morphological hints of recent galaxy mergers. This implies that internal processes (e.g., stellar mass loss or hot gas cooling) for the supply of cold gas to early-type galaxies may play a significant role in the residual star formation of early-type galaxies at a recent epoch.

Abell 2384: the galaxy population of a cluster post-merger

We combine multi-object spectroscopy from the 2dF and EFOSC2 spectrographs with optical imaging of the inner 30'x30' of A2384 taken with the ESO Wide Field Imager. We carry out a kinematical analysis using the EMMIX algorithm and biweight statistics. We address the possible presence of cluster substructures with the Dressler-Shectman test. Cluster galaxies are investigated with respect to [OII] and H{\alpha} equivalent width. Galaxies covered by our optical imaging observations are additionally analysed in terms of colour, star formation rate and morphological descriptors such as Gini coefficient and M20 index. We study cluster galaxy properties as a function of clustercentric distance and investigate the distribution of various galaxy types in colour-magnitude and physical space. The Dressler-Shectman test reveals a substructure in the east of the 2dF field-of-view. We determine the mass ratio between the northern and southern subcluster to be 1.6:1. In accordance with other cluster studies, we find that a large fraction of the disk galaxies close to the cluster core show no detectable star formation. Probably these are systems which are quenched due to ram-pressure stripping. The sample of quenched disks populates the transition area between the blue cloud and the red sequence in colour-magnitude space. We also find a population of morphologically distorted galaxies in the central cluster region. The substructure in the east of A2384 might be a group of galaxies falling onto the main cluster. We speculate that our sample of quenched spirals represents an intermediate phase in the ram-pressure driven transformation of infalling field spirals into cluster S0s. This is motivated by their position in colour-magnitude space. The occurrence of morphologically distorted galaxies in the cluster core complies with the hypothesis of A2384 representing a post merger system.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MERGING RCS 231953+00 SUPERCLUSTER ATz∼ 0.9

The RCS 2319+00 supercluster is a massive supercluster at z=0.9 comprising three optically selected, spectroscopically confirmed clusters separated by <3 Mpc on the plane of the sky. This supercluster is one of a few known examples of the progenitors of present-day massive clusters (10^{15} Msun by z~0.5). We present an extensive spectroscopic campaign carried out on the supercluster field resulting, in conjunction with previously published data, in 1961 high confidence galaxy redshifts. We find 302 structure members spanning three distinct redshift walls separated from one another by ~65 Mpc. The component clusters have spectroscopic redshifts of 0.901, 0.905 and 0.905. The velocity dispersions are consistent with those predicted from X-ray data, giving estimated cluster masses of ~10^{14.5} - 10^{14.9} Msun. The Dressler-Shectman test finds evidence of substructure in the supercluster field and a friends-of-friends analysis identified 5 groups in the supercluster, including a filamentary structure stretching between two cluster cores previously identified in the infrared by Coppin et al. (2012). The galaxy colors further show this filamentary structure to be a unique region of activity within the supercluster, comprised mainly of blue galaxies compared to the ~43-77% red-sequence galaxies present in the other groups and cluster cores. Richness estimates from stacked luminosity function fits results in average group mass estimates consistent with ~10^{13} Msun halos. Currently, 22% of our confirmed members reside in >~10^{13} Msun groups/clusters destined to merge onto the most massive cluster, in agreement with the massive halo galaxy fractions important in cluster galaxy pre-processing in N-body simulation merger tree studies.

Multimodality of rich clusters from the SDSS DR8 within the supercluster-void network

We study the relations between the multimodality of galaxy clusters drawn from the SDSS DR8 and the environment where they reside. As cluster environment we consider the global luminosity density field, supercluster membership, and supercluster morphology. We use 3D normal mixture modelling, the Dressler-Shectman test, and the peculiar velocity of cluster main galaxies as signatures of multimodality of clusters. We calculate the luminosity density field to study the environmental densities around clusters, and to find superclusters where clusters reside. We determine the morphology of superclusters with the Minkowski functionals and compare the properties of clusters in superclusters of different morphology. We apply principal component analysis to study the relations between the multimodality parametres of clusters and their environment simultaneously. We find that multimodal clusters reside in higher density environment than unimodal clusters. Clusters in superclusters have higher probability to have substructure than isolated clusters. The superclusters can be divided into two main morphological types, spiders and filaments. Clusters in superclusters of spider morphology have higher probabilities to have substructure and larger peculiar velocities of their main galaxies than clusters in superclusters of filament morphology. The most luminous clusters are located in the high-density cores of rich superclusters. Five of seven most luminous clusters, and five of seven most multimodal clusters reside in spider-type superclusters; four of seven most unimodal clusters reside in filament-type superclusters. Our study shows the importance of the role of superclusters as high density environment which affects the properties of galaxy systems in them.

Multimodality in galaxy clusters from SDSS DR8: substructure and velocity distribution

We search for the presence of substructure, a non-Gaussian, asymmetrical velocity distribution of galaxies, and large peculiar velocities of the main galaxies in galaxy clusters with at least 50 member galaxies, drawn from the SDSS DR8. We employ a number of 3D, 2D, and 1D tests to analyse the distribution of galaxies in clusters: 3D normal mixture modelling, the Dressler-Shectman test, the Anderson-Darling and Shapiro-Wilk tests and others. We find the peculiar velocities of the main galaxies, and use principal component analysis to characterise our results. More than 80% of the clusters in our sample have substructure according to 3D normal mixture modelling, the Dressler-Shectman (DS) test shows substructure in about 70% of the clusters. The median value of the peculiar velocities of the main galaxies in clusters is 206 km/s (41% of the rms velocity). The velocities of galaxies in more than 20% of the clusters show significant non-Gaussianity. While multidimensional normal mixture modelling is more sensitive than the DS test in resolving substructure in the sky distribution of cluster galaxies, the DS test determines better substructure expressed as tails in the velocity distribution of galaxies. Richer, larger, and more luminous clusters have larger amount of substructure and larger (compared to the rms velocity) peculiar velocities of the main galaxies. Principal component analysis of both the substructure indicators and the physical parameters of clusters shows that galaxy clusters are complicated objects, the properties of which cannot be explained with a small number of parameters or delimited by one single test. The presence of substructure, the non-Gaussian velocity distributions, as well as the large peculiar velocities of the main galaxies, shows that most of the clusters in our sample are dynamically young.

Galaxy subgroups in galaxy clusters

Galaxies which fall into clusters as part of the same infall halo can retain correlations due to their shared origin. N-body simulations are used to study properties of such galaxy subgroups within clusters, including their richnesses and prevalence. The sizes, densities and velocity dispersions of all subgroups with >= 8 galaxies are found and compared to those of the host clusters. The largest galaxy subgroup provides a preferred direction in the cluster and is compared to other preferred directions in the cluster. Scatter in cluster mass measurements (via five observables), along ~ 96 lines of sight, is compared to the relation of the line of sight to this preferred direction: scatter in cluster velocity dispersion measurements show the strongest correlation. The Dressler-Shectman test (Dressler & Shectman 1988), is applied to these clusters, to see whether the substructure it identifies is related to these subgroups. The results for any specific line of sight seem noisy; however, clusters with large subgroups tend to have a higher fraction of lines of sight where the test detects substructure.

Spectroscopy of clusters in the ESO distant cluster survey (EDisCS). II.

Aims. We present spectroscopic observations of galaxies in 15 survey fields as part of the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS). We determine the redshifts and velocity dispersions of the galaxy clusters located in these fields, and we test for possible substructure in the clusters. Methods: We obtained multi-object mask spectroscopy using the FORS2 instrument at the VLT. We reduced the data with particular attention to the sky subtraction. We implemented the method of Kelson for performing sky subtraction prior to any rebinning/interpolation of the data. From the measured galaxy redshifts, we determine cluster velocity dispersions using the biweight estimator and test for possible substructure in the clusters using the Dressler-Shectman test. Results: The method of subtracting the sky prior to any rebinning/interpolation of the data delivers photon-noise-limited results, whereas the traditional method of subtracting the sky after the data have been rebinned/interpolated results in substantially larger noise for spectra from tilted slits. Redshifts for individual galaxies are presented and redshifts and velocity dispersions are presented for 21 galaxy clusters. For the 9 clusters with at least 20 spectroscopically confirmed members, we present the statistical significance of the presence of substructure obtained from the Dressler-Shectman test, and substructure is detected in two of the clusters. Conclusions: Together with data from our previous paper, spectroscopy and spectroscopic velocity dispersions are now available for 26 EDisCS clusters with redshifts in the range 0.40-0.96 and velocity dispersions in the range 166 km s-1-1080 km s-1. Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, Chile, as part of large programme 166.A-0162 (the ESO Distant Cluster Survey). Full Table 4 is only available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/482/419