Deep Imaging of Diffuse Light Around Galaxies and Clusters: Progress and Challenges

TL;DR

This review discusses recent progress in deep imaging techniques that enable detection of faint diffuse light around galaxies and clusters, along with the challenges faced in further advancing this field.

Contribution

It summarizes recent advancements and identifies systematic challenges in deep imaging of diffuse light around galaxies and clusters.

Findings

Detection of faint diffuse stellar light has improved significantly.

Systematic errors pose major challenges for deeper imaging.

Future efforts require careful error mitigation strategies.

Abstract

Over the past several decades, advances in telescope/detector technologies and deep imaging techniques have pushed surface brightness limits to ever fainter levels. We can now both detect and measure the diffuse, extended star light that surrounds galaxies and permeates galaxy clusters, enabling the study of galaxy halos, tidal streams, diffuse galaxy populations, and the assembly history of galaxies and galaxy clusters. With successes come new challenges, however, and pushing even deeper will require careful attention to systematic sources of error. In this review I highlight recent advances in the study of diffuse starlight in galaxies, and discuss challenges faced by the next generation of deep imaging campaigns.