Intracluster Light Properties in a Fossil Cluster at z=0.47

TL;DR

This study investigates the properties and origin of intracluster light in a fossil galaxy cluster at redshift 0.47, providing new observational constraints on ICL formation mechanisms.

Contribution

It offers detailed measurements of ICL surface brightness, colour profiles, and fraction in a fossil cluster at z=0.47, highlighting the complexity of ICL origins.

Findings

ICL fraction is approximately 15% between 60-155 kpc from the BCG.

ICL colour is similar to central galaxies but becomes bluer outward.

ICL distribution aligns more with member galaxies than with the BCG luminosity.

Abstract

Galaxy clusters contain a diffuse stellar component outside the cluster's galaxies, which is observed as faint intracluster light (ICL). Using Gemini/GMOS-N deep imaging and multi-object spectroscopy of a massive fossil cluster at a redshift of $z=0.47$, RX J105453.3+552102 (J1054), we improve the observational constraints on the formation mechanism of the ICL. We extract the ICL surface brightness and colour profiles out to 155 kpc from the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) with a detection limit of 28.7 mag/arcsec$^2$ (1$\sigma$, 4.8" x 4.8"; i-band). The colour of the diffuse light is similar to that of the BCG and central bright galaxies out to $\sim$ 70 kpc, becoming slightly bluer toward the outside. We find that the ICL distribution shows better agreement with the spatial distribution of member galaxies than with the BCG-dominated cluster luminosity distribution. We report the ICL fraction of J1054 as $15.07 \pm 4.57 \%$ in the range of $60 \sim 155$ kpc from the BCG, which appears to be higher than the ICL fraction-redshift trend in previous studies. Our findings suggest that intracluster stars seems not to be explained by one dominant production mechanism. However, a significant fraction of the ICL of J1054 may have been generated from the outskirts of infalling/satellite galaxies more recently rather than by the BCG at the early stage of the cluster.