Co-evolution of BCGs and ICL using CLASH

TL;DR

This study investigates the growth of brightest cluster galaxies and intracluster light in galaxy clusters from redshift 0.18 to 0.90, revealing that ICL growth dominates cluster core evolution and is mainly driven by minor mergers.

Contribution

It provides new observational evidence on the co-evolution of BCGs and ICL, highlighting the dominant role of minor mergers in stellar mass assembly at low redshifts.

Findings

BCGs grow by a factor of 1.4 in stellar mass, reduced to 1.2 considering ICL formation.

ICL contribution to total cluster light increases by a factor of 4-5.

Major mergers are rare; minor mergers primarily drive stellar mass assembly.

Abstract

We examine the stellar mass assembly in galaxy cluster cores using data from the Cluster Lensing and Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH). We measure the growth of brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) stellar mass, the fraction of the total cluster light which is in the intracluster light (ICL) and the numbers of mergers that occur in the BCG over the redshift range of the sample, 0.18<z<0.90. We find that BCGs grow in stellar mass by a factor of 1.4 on average from accretion of their companions, and this growth is reduced to a factor of 1.2 assuming 50% of the accreted stellar mass becomes ICL, in line with the predictions of simulations. We find that the ICL shows significant growth over this same redshift range, growing by a factor of of 4--5 in its contribution to the total cluster light. This result is in line with our previous findings for ICL at higher redshifts, however our measured growth is somewhat steeper than is predicted by simulations of ICL assembly. We find high mass companions and hence major merging (mergers with objects of masses $\geq$1/2 of the BCG) to be very rare for our sample. We conclude that minor mergers (mergers with objects with masses $<$ 1/2 of the BCG) are the dominant process for stellar mass assembly at low redshifts, with the majority of the stellar mass from interactions ending up contributing to the ICL rather than building up the BCG. From a rough estimate of the stellar mass growth of the ICL we also conclude that the majority of the ICL stars must come from galaxies which fall from outside of the core of the cluster, as is predicted by simulations. It appears that the growth of the ICL is the major evolution event in galaxy cluster cores during the second half of the lifetime of the Universe.