Galaxies at the extremes: ultra-diffuse galaxies in the virgo cluster

Journal Article · Thu Aug 20 04:00:00 EDT 2015 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/809/2/L21· OSTI ID:22868722

Mihos, J. Christopher; Harding, Paul ^[1]; Durrell, Patrick R.; Feldmeier, John J. ^[2]; Ferrarese, Laura; Côté, Patrick; Gwyn, Stephen ^[3]; Peng, Eric W. ^[4]; Liu, Chengze ^[5]; Cuillandre, Jean-Charles ^[6]

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1. Department of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, OH 44106 (United States)
2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, OH 44555 (United States)
3. Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7 (Canada)
4. Department of Astronomy, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China)
5. Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240 (China)
6. Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Corporation, Kamuela, HI 96743 (United States)

We report the discovery of three large (R{sub 29} ≳ 1′) extremely low surface brightness (LSB; μ{sub V,0}≈27.0) galaxies identified using our deep, wide-field imaging of the Virgo Cluster from the Burrell Schmidt telescope. Complementary data from the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey do not resolve red giant branch stars in these objects down to i = 24, yielding a lower distance limit of 2.5 Mpc. At the Virgo distance, these objects have half-light radii 3–10 kpc and luminosities L{sub V} = 2–9 × 10{sup 7} L{sub ⊙}. These galaxies are comparable in size but lower in surface brightness than the large ultradiffuse LSB galaxies recently identified in the Coma cluster, and are located well within Virgo’s virial radius; two are projected directly on the cluster core. One object appears to be a nucleated LSB in the process of being tidally stripped to form a new Virgo ultracompact dwarf galaxy. The others show no sign of tidal disruption, despite the fact that such objects should be most vulnerable to tidal destruction in the cluster environment. The relative proximity of Virgo makes these objects amenable to detailed studies of their structural properties and resolved stellar populations. They thus provide an important new window onto the connection between cluster environment and galaxy evolution at the extremes.

• OSTI ID: 22868722
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Letters Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 809; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
BRIGHTNESS
DISTANCE
GALAXIES
LUMINOSITY
RED GIANT STARS
STAR CLUSTERS
TELESCOPES