Ultra-diffuse and Ultra-compact Galaxies in the Frontier Fields Cluster Abell 2744

TL;DR

This study discovers a large population of ultra-diffuse galaxies in galaxy cluster Abell 2744, extending the known relationship between UDG abundance and cluster mass, and explores their connection to ultra-compact dwarfs.

Contribution

It reports the first extensive detection of UDGs in a cluster more massive than Coma, revealing their abundance and potential evolutionary link to UCDs.

Findings

A2744 hosts approximately 2133 UDGs, ten times more than Coma.

Both UDGs and UCDs scale with cluster mass as a power law.

UCDs are concentrated toward the cluster center, UDGs are not.

Abstract

We report the discovery of a large population of Ultra-diffuse Galaxies (UDGs) in the massive galaxy cluster Abell 2744 (z=0.308) as observed by the Hubble Frontier Fields program. Since this cluster is ~5 times more massive than Coma, our observations allow us to extend 0.7 dex beyond the high-mass end of the relationship between UDG abundance and cluster mass reported by van der Burg et al. 2016. Using the same selection criteria as van der Burg et al. 2016, A2744 hosts an estimated 2133 +/- 613 UDGs, ten times the number in Coma. As noted by Lee & Jang 2016, A2744 contains numerous unresolved compact objects, which those authors identified predominantly as globular clusters. However, these objects have luminosities that are more consistent with ultra-compact dwarf (UCD) galaxies. The abundances of both UCDs and UDGs scale with cluster mass as a power law with a similar exponent, although UDGs and UCDs have very different radial distributions within the cluster. The radial surface density distribution of UCDs rises sharply toward the cluster centre, while the surface density distribution of the UDG population is essentially flat. Together, these observations hint at a picture where some UCDs in A2744 may have once been associated with infalling UDGs. As UDGs fall in and dissolve, they leave behind a residue of unbound ultra-compact dwarfs.