Dynamical masses of brightest cluster galaxies II: constraints on the stellar IMF

TL;DR

This study combines stellar population and dynamical modeling of 32 brightest cluster galaxies to constrain their stellar initial mass function, revealing significant IMF variation and a tendency towards a bottom-heavy IMF in most cases.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed comparison of stellar and dynamical mass-to-light ratios in BCGs, constraining the IMF and highlighting its diversity in massive galaxies.

Findings

Most BCGs require a Salpeter or more bottom-heavy IMF.

A small subset prefers a Kroupa or lighter IMF.

Mass-excess factors align with known velocity dispersion correlations.

Abstract

We use stellar and dynamical mass profiles, combined with a stellar population analysis, of 32 brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) at redshifts of 0.05 $\leq z \leq$ 0.30, to place constraints on their stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF). We measure the spatially-resolved stellar population properties of the BCGs, and use it to derive their stellar mass-to-light ratios ($\Upsilon_{\star \rm POP}$). We find young stellar populations ($<$200 Myr) in the centres of 22 per cent of the sample, and constant $\Upsilon_{\star \rm POP}$ within 15 kpc for 60 per cent of the sample. We further use the stellar mass-to-light ratio from the dynamical mass profiles of the BCGs ($\Upsilon_{\star \rm DYN}$), modelled using a Multi-Gaussian Expansion (MGE) and Jeans Anisotropic Method (JAM), with the dark matter contribution explicitly constrained from weak gravitational lensing measurements. We directly compare the stellar mass-to-light ratios derived from the two independent methods, $\Upsilon_{\star \rm POP}$ (assuming some IMF) to $\Upsilon_{\star \rm DYN}$ for the subsample of BCGs with no young stellar populations and constant $\Upsilon_{\star \rm POP}$. We find that for the majority of these BCGs, a Salpeter (or even more bottom-heavy) IMF is needed to reconcile the stellar population and dynamical modelling results although for a small number of BCGs, a Kroupa (or even lighter) IMF is preferred. For those BCGs better fit with a Salpeter IMF, we find that the mass-excess factor against velocity dispersion falls on an extrapolation (towards higher masses) of known literature correlations. We conclude that there is substantial scatter in the IMF amongst the highest-mass galaxies.