Abstract
Recent observations have highlighted a significant population of faint but
large (r_eff>1.5 kpc) galaxies in the Coma cluster. The origin of these Ultra
Diffuse Galaxies (UDGs) remains puzzling, as the interpretation of these
observational results has been hindered by the subjective selection of UDGs,
and the limited study of only the Coma (and some examples in the Virgo-)
cluster. In this paper we extend the study of UDGs using eight clusters in the
redshift range 0.044<z<0.063 with deep g- and r-band imaging data taken with
MegaCam at the CFHT. We describe an automatic selection pipeline for a
quantitative identification, tested for completeness using image simulations of
these galaxies. We find that the abundance of the UDGs we can detect increases
with cluster mass, reaching ~200 in typical haloes of M200~10^15 Msun. The
cluster UDGs have colours consistent with the cluster red sequence, and have a
steep size distribution that declines as n ~ r_eff^-3.4. Their radial
distribution is significantly steeper than NFW in the outskirts, and
significantly shallower in the inner parts. They follow the same radial
distribution as the more massive quiescent galaxies in the clusters, except
within the core region of r < 0.15 X R200 (or <300 kpc). Within this region the
number density of UDGs drops and is consistent with zero. These diffuse
galaxies can only resist tidal forces down to this cluster-centric distance if
they are completely dark matter dominated. Moreover, this picture is consistent
with the observation that the radial distribution of more compact dwarf
galaxies (r_eff<1.0 kpc) with similar luminosities follows the same
distribution as the UDGs, but they exist down to a smaller distance of 100 kpc
from the cluster centres. Although a number of scenarios can give rise to the
UDG population, our results point to differences in the formation history as
the most plausible explanation.
Users
Please
log in to take part in the discussion (add own reviews or comments).