Radio luminosity function of brightest cluster galaxies

TL;DR

This study constructs the largest radio luminosity function for brightest cluster galaxies, revealing dependencies on optical luminosity and cluster dynamics, with minimal evolution over redshift.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive radio luminosity functions of BCGs based on an extensive, complete sample, highlighting their relation to cluster properties.

Findings

Radio luminosity functions depend on BCG optical luminosity.

Radio luminosity functions depend on cluster dynamical state.

Minimal evolution of radio luminosity functions with redshift.

Abstract

By cross-matching the currently largest optical catalog of galaxy clusters and the NVSS radio survey database, we obtain the largest complete sample of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) in the redshift range of 0.05<z<0.45, which have radio emission and redshift information. We confirm that more powerful radio BCGs tend to be these optically very bight galaxies located in more relaxed clusters. We derived the radio luminosity functions of BCGs from the largest complete sample of BCGs, and find that the functions depend on the optical luminosity of BCGs and the dynamical state of galaxy clusters. However, the radio luminosity function does not show significant evolution with redshift.