Intrinsic shapes of Brightest Cluster Galaxies

TL;DR

This study reveals that Brightest Cluster Galaxies are strongly triaxial with shape profiles that vary from spherical in the center to more flattened at larger radii, aligning with some simulations but not all.

Contribution

First direct measurement of BCG shape profiles without relying solely on statistical ellipticity analysis, revealing detailed triaxiality and shape variations.

Findings

BCGs are strongly triaxial with specific triaxiality parameters.

Outer shapes agree with simulations of dark matter halos.

Inner regions are more spherical than simulated predictions.

Abstract

We discuss the statistical distribution of galaxy shapes and viewing angles under the assumption of triaxiality by deprojecting observed Surface Brightness (SB) profiles of 56 Brightest Cluster Galaxies coming from a recently published large deep-photometry sample. For the first time, we address this issue by directly measuring axis ratio profiles without limiting ourselves to a statistical analysis of average ellipticities. We show that these objects are strongly triaxial, with triaxiality parameters 0.39 $ \leq T \leq $ 0.72, have on average axis ratios $< p(r) > = $ 0.84 and $< q(r) > =$ 0.68, and are more spherical in the central regions but flatten out at large radii. Measured shapes in the outskirts agree well with the shapes found for simulated massive galaxies and their dark matter halos from both the IllustrisTNG and the Magneticum simulations, possibly probing the nature of dark matter. In contrast, both simulations fail to reproduce the observed inner regions of BCGs, producing too flattened objects.