An environmental Butcher-Oemler effect in intermediate redshift X-ray clusters

TL;DR

This study analyzes galaxy populations in 34 X-ray clusters at intermediate redshifts, revealing an environmental dependence of galaxy colors and a potential link to starburst activity in lower-mass clusters.

Contribution

It demonstrates a correlation between cluster mass and galaxy blue fraction, and suggests environmental effects influence galaxy evolution at intermediate redshifts.

Findings

Higher blue fractions in lower-mass clusters.

Environmental dependence of galaxy color bimodality.

Possible excess of starburst galaxies in the coolest clusters.

Abstract

We present uniform CFHT Megacam g and r photometry for 34 X-ray selected galaxy clusters drawn from the X-ray Multi-Mirror (XMM) Large Scale Structure (LSS) survey and the Canadian Cluster Comparison Project (CCCP). The clusters possess well determined X-ray temperatures spanning the range 1<kT(keV)<12. In addition, the clusters occupy a relatively narrow redshift interval (0.15<z<0.41) in order to minimize any redshift dependent photometric effects. We investigate the colour bimodality of the cluster galaxy populations and compute blue fractions using criteria derived from Butcher and Oemler (1984). We identify a trend to observe increasing blue fraction versus redshift in common with numerous previous studies of cluster galaxy populations. However, in addition we identify an environmental dependence of cluster blue fraction in that cool (low mass) clusters display higher blue fractions than hotter (higher mass) clusters. Finally, we tentatively identify a small excess population of extremely blue galaxies in the coolest X-ray clusters (essentially massive groups) and note that these may be the signature of actively star bursting galaxies driven by galaxy-galaxy interactions in the group environment.