The Inside-out Growth of the Most Massive Galaxies at 0.3<z<0.9

Abstract

We study the surface brightness profiles of a sample of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) with 0.3<z<0.9. The BCGs are selected from the first Red-sequence Cluster Survey and an X-ray cluster survey. The surface brightness profiles of the BCGs are measured using HST ACS images, and most of them can be well modeled by a Sersic profile with index ~ 6 and half-light radius ~ 30 kpc. Although the single Sersic model fits the profiles well, we argue that the systematics in the sky background measurement and the coupling between the model parameters make the comparison of the model parameters ambiguous. Direct comparison of the BCG profiles, on the other hand, has revealed an inside-out growth for these most massive galaxies: as the mass of a BCG increases, the central mass density of the galaxy increases slowly (${\rho }_{1kpc}\propto M{\ast }^{0.39}$), while the slope of the outer profile grows continuously shallower ($\alpha \propto M{\ast }^{-2.5}$). Such a fashion of growth continues down to the less massive early-type galaxies (ETGs), without apparent distinction between BCGs and non-BCGs. For the very massive ETGs and BCGs, the slope of the Kormendy relation starts to trace the slope of the surface brightness profiles and becomes insensitive to subtle profile evolution. These results are generally consistent with dry mergers being the major driver of the mass growth for BCGs and massive ETGs. We also find strong correlations between the richness of clusters and the properties of BCGs: the more massive the clusters are, the more massive the BCGs ($M{\ast }_{bcg}\propto M_{clusters}^{0.6}$) and the shallower their surface brightness profiles. After taking into account the bias in the cluster samples, we find the masses of the BCGs have grown by at least a factor of 1.5 from z=0.5 to z=0, in contrast to the previous findings of no evolution. Such an evolution validates the expectation from the LCDM model.

arXiv comment23 pages, 11 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ, fixed typos

References in corpus (47)

• Detailed Decomposition of Galaxy Images. II. Beyond Axisymmetric Models
• The hierarchical formation of the brightest cluster galaxies
• The epochs of early-type galaxy formation as a function of environment
• Minor mergers and the size evolution of elliptical galaxies
• Structure and Formation of Elliptical and Spheroidal Galaxies
• Passively Evolving Early-type Galaxies at 1.4<z<2.5 in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• The Growth of Massive Galaxies Since z=2
• Confirmation of the remarkable compactness of massive quiescent galaxies at z~2.3: early-type galaxies did not form in a simple monolithic collapse
• The Merger Rates and Mass Assembly Histories of Dark Matter Haloes in the Two Millennium Simulations
• The Relation Between Compact, Quiescent High Redshift Galaxies and Massive Nearby Elliptical Galaxies: Evidence for Hierarchical, Inside-Out Growth
• K-band Properties of Galaxy Clusters and Groups: Brightest Cluster Galaxies and Intracluster Light
• The Red-Sequence Cluster Survey I: The Survey and Cluster Catalogs for Patches RCS0926+37 and RCS1327+29
• Red Nuggets at z~1.5: Compact passive galaxies and the formation of the Kormendy Relation
• Intracluster Light in Nearby Galaxy Clusters: Relationship to the Halos of Brightest Cluster Galaxies
• The Origin of the Brightest Cluster Galaxies
• How do minor mergers promote inside-out growth of ellipticals, transforming the size, density profile and dark matter fraction?
• Compact High-Redshift Galaxies Are the Cores of the Most Massive Present-Day Spheroids
• Modeling the color evolution of luminous red galaxies - improvements with empirical stellar spectra
• HST/WFC3 Confirmation of the Inside-Out Growth of Massive Galaxies at 0<z<2 and Identification of their Star Forming Progenitors at z~3
• Some Effects of Galaxy Structure and Dynamics on the Fundamental Plane
• Evidence for Significant Growth in the Stellar Mass of Brightest Cluster Galaxies over the Past 10 Billion Years
• Early assembly of the most massive galaxies
• Resurrecting the Red from the Dead: Optical Properties of BCGs in X-ray Luminous Clusters
• The 160 Square Degree ROSAT Survey: the Revised Catalog of 201 Clusters with Spectroscopic Redshifts
• The evolution of the brightest cluster galaxies since z~1 from the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS)
• The K-band Hubble diagram for the brightest cluster galaxies: a test of hierarchical galaxy formation models
• The XMM Cluster Survey: The build up of stellar mass in Brightest Cluster Galaxies at high redshift
• The Fundamental Manifold of Spheroids
• Correlations of Richness and Global Properties in Galaxy Clusters
• A Quantitative Measure of the Richness of Galaxy Clusters
• Evolution in the structural properties of early-type Brightest Cluster Galaxies at small lookback time and dependence on the environment
• Little change in the sizes of the most massive galaxies since z = 1
• The ages, metallicities and star formation histories of early-type galaxies in SDSS
• The XMM Cluster Survey: The interplay between the brightest cluster galaxy and the intra-cluster medium via AGN feedback
• The K-band Hubble diagram for brightest cluster galaxies in X-ray clusters
• Empirical Models for Dark Matter Halos. III. The Kormendy relation and the log(rho_e)-log(R_e) relation
• Bandpass Dependence of X-ray Temperatures in Galaxy Clusters
• Evolution of BCGs structural parameters in the last $\sim$6 Gyr: feedback processes versus merger events
• Cluster Selection and the Evolution of Brightest Cluster Galaxies
• Chandra X-ray Observations of the 0.6 < z < 1.1 Red-Sequence Cluster Survey Sample
• Mergers in Galaxy Groups - I. Structure and Properties of Elliptical Remnants
• Near-Infrared Properties of Moderate-Redshift Galaxy Clusters: Halo Occupation Number, Mass-to-Light Ratios and Omega_m
• On the central stellar mass density and the inside-out growth of early-type galaxies
• The Enrichment of the Intracluster Medium
• The mass-L_x relation for moderate luminosity X-ray clusters
• Spectroscopy of moderately high-redshift RCS-1 clusters
• The inner structure of very massive elliptical galaxies: implications for the inside-out formation mechanism of z~2 galaxies

Cited by in corpus (22)

• BCG Mass Evolution in Cosmological Hydro-Simulations
• The baryon content of groups and clusters of galaxies in the FABLE simulations
• The massive relic galaxy NGC 1277 is dark matter deficient. From dynamical models of integral-field stellar kinematics out to five effective radii
• The Growth of Brightest Cluster Galaxies and Intracluster Light Over the Past Ten Billion Years
• Galaxies in X-ray Selected Clusters and Groups in Dark Energy Survey Data I: Stellar Mass Growth of Bright Central Galaxies Since z~1.2
• The evolution in the stellar mass of Brightest Cluster Galaxies over the past 10 billion years
• Cluster and field elliptical galaxies at z~1.3. The marginal role of the environment and the relevance of the galaxy central regions
• Red but not dead : Unveiling the Star-forming Far-infrared Spectral Energy Distribution of SpARCS Brightest Cluster Galaxies at 0 < z < 1.8
• Revisiting the bulge-halo conspiracy I: Dependence on galaxy properties and halo mass
• Rapid build-up of the stellar content in the protocluster core SPT2349$-$56 at $z=4.3$
• Physical properties of Brightest Cluster Galaxies up to redshift 1.80 based on HST data
• Brightest Group Galaxies: Stellar Mass and Star Formation Rate (paper I)
• Brightest Cluster Galaxies and Intra-Cluster Light: Their Mass Distribution in the Innermost Regions of Groups and Clusters
• The low dark matter content of the lenticular galaxy NGC 3998
• The link between brightest cluster galaxy properties and large scale extensions of 38 DAFT/FADA and CLASH clusters in the redshift range 0.2<z<0.9
• Brightest Cluster Galaxies Are Statistically Special From $z=0.3$ to $z=1$
• Physical properties of more than one thousand brightest cluster galaxies detected in the Canada France Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey
• Inquiring into the nature of the Abell 2667 Brightest Cluster Galaxy: physical properties from MUSE
• Star forming brightest cluster galaxies at $z\sim 0.4$ in KiDS. Further studies of cold gas and stellar properties
• Stellar Mass and 3.4 $\mu$m M/L Ratio Evolution of Brightest Cluster Galaxies in COSMOS since z ~ 1.0
• Pixel Color-Magnitude Diagram Analysis of the Brightest Cluster Galaxies in Dynamically Young and Old Clusters, Abell 1139 and Abell 2589
• Structural Analysis of Brightest Cluster Galaxies in Poor and Rich Clusters