Evolution of galaxy groups in the Illustris simulation

We present the first study of evolution of galaxy groups in the Illustris simulation. We focus on dynamically relaxed and unrelaxed galaxy groups representing dynamically evolved and evolving galaxy systems, respectively. The evolutionary state of a group is probed from its luminosity gap and separation between the brightest group galaxy and the center of mass of the group members. We find that the Illustris simulation, over-produces large luminosity gap galaxy systems, known as fossil systems, in comparison to observations and the probed semi-analytical predictions. However, this simulation is equally successful in recovering the correlation between luminosity gap and luminosity centroid offset, in comparison to the probed semi-analytic model. We find evolutionary tracks based on luminosity gap which indicate that a large luminosity gap group is rooted in a small luminosity gap group, regardless of the position of the brightest group galaxy within the halo. This simulation helps, for the first time, to explore the black hole mass and its accretion rate in galaxy groups. For a given stellar mass of the brightest group galaxies, the black hole mass is larger in dynamically relaxed groups with a lower rate of mass accretion. We find this consistent with the latest observational studies of the radio activities in the brightest group galaxies in fossil groups. We also find that the IGM in dynamically evolved groups is hotter for a given halo mass than that in evolving groups, again consistent with earlier observational studies.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

The central elliptical galaxy in fossil groups and formation of BCGs

We study the dominant central giant elliptical galaxies in ``Fossil groups'' using deep optical (R-band) and near infrared (Ks-band) photometry. These galaxies are as luminous as the brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), raising immediate interest in their link to the formation of BCGs and galaxy clusters. However, despite apparent similarities, the dominant fossil galaxies show non-boxy isophotes, in contrast to the most luminous BCGs. This study suggests that the structure of the brightest group galaxies produced in fossil groups are systematically different to the majority of BCGs. If the fossils do indeed form from the merger of major galaxies including late-types within a group, then their disky nature is consistent with the results of recent numerical simulations of semi-analytical models which suggest that gas rich mergers result in disky isophote ellipticals. We show that fossils form a homogeneous population in which the velocity dispersion of the fossil group is tightly correlated with the luminosity of the dominant elliptical galaxy. This supports the scenario in which the giant elliptical galaxies in fossils can grow to the size and luminosity of BCGs in a group environment. However, the boxy structure of luminous BCGs indicate that they are either not formed as fossils, or have undergone later gas-free mergers within the cluster environment.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS letter

A statistical study of the luminosity gap in galaxy groups

The luminosity gap between the two brightest members of galaxy groups and clusters is thought to offer a strong test for the models of galaxy formation and evolution. This study focuses on the statistics of the luminosity gap in galaxy groups, in particular fossil groups, e.g. large luminosity gap, in an analogy with the same in a cosmological simulation. We use spectroscopic legacy data of seventh data release (DR7) of SDSS, to extract a volume limited sample of galaxy groups utilizing modified friends-of-friends (mFoF) algorithm. Attention is paid to galaxy groups with the brightest group galaxy (BGG) more luminous than \Mr = -22. An initial sample of 620 groups in which 109 optical fossil groups, where the luminosity gap exceeds 2 magnitude, were identified. We compare the statistics of the luminosity gap in galaxy groups at low mass range from the SDSS with the same in the Millennium simulations where galaxies are modeled semi-analytically. We show that the BGGs residing in galaxy groups with large luminosity gap, i.e. fossil groups, are on average brighter and live in lower mass halos with respect to their counter parts in non-fossil systems. Although low mass galaxy groups are thought to have recently formed, we show that in galaxy groups with 15 galaxies brighter than $M_r\ge -19.5$, evolutionary process are most likely to be responsible for the large luminosity gap. We also examine a new probe of finding fossil group. In addition we extend the recently introduced observational probe based on the luminosity gap, the butterfly diagram, to galaxy groups and study the probe as a function of halo mass. This probe can, in conjunction with the luminosity function, help to fine tune the semi-analytic models of galaxies employed in the cosmological simulations.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, accepted to PASP journa

The Mass Assembly of Fossil Groups of Galaxies in the Millennium Simulation

The evolution of present-day fossil galaxy groups is studied in the Millennium Simulation. Using the corresponding Millennium gas simulation and semi-analytic galaxy catalogues, we select fossil groups at redshift zero according to the conventional observational criteria, and trace the haloes corresponding to these groups backwards in time, extracting the associated dark matter, gas and galaxy properties. The space density of the fossils from this study is remarkably close to the observed estimates and various possibilities for the remaining discrepancy are discussed. The fraction of X-ray bright systems which are fossils appears to be in reasonable agreement with observation, and the simulations predict that fossil systems will be found in significant numbers (3-4% of the population) even in quite rich clusters. We find that fossils assemble a higher fraction of their mass at high redshift, compared to non-fossil groups, with the ratio of the currently assembled halo mass to final mass, at any epoch, being about 10 to 20% higher for fossils. This supports the paradigm whereby fossils represent undisturbed, early-forming systems in which large galaxies have merged to form a single dominant elliptical.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, submitted to MNRA

A near infrared photometric plane for ellipticals and bulges of spirals

We report the existence of a single plane in the space of global photometric parameters describing elliptical galaxies and the bulges of early type spiral galaxies. The three parameters which define the plane are obtained by fitting the Sersic form to the brightness distribution obtained from near-infrared K band images. We find, from the range covered by their shape parameters, that the elliptical galaxies form a more homogeneous population than the bulges. Known correlations like the Kormendy relation are projections of the photometric plane. The existence of the plane has interesting implications for bulge formation models.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX including 5 figures. To appear in the Astrophysical Journal Letter

Flare Activity and Magnetic Feature Analysis of the Flare Stars II: Sub-Giant Branch

We present an investigation of the magnetic activity and flare characteristics of the sub-giant stars mostly from F and G spectral types and compare the results with the main-sequence (MS) stars. The light curve of 352 stars on the sub-giant branch (SGB) from the Kepler mission is analyzed in order to infer stability, relative coverage and contrast of the magnetic structures and also flare properties using three flare indexes. The results show that: (i) Relative coverage and contrast of the magnetic features along with rate, power and magnitude of flares increase on the SGB due to the deepening of the convective zone and more vigorous magnetic field production (ii) Magnetic activity of the F and G-type stars on the SGB does not show dependency to the rotation rate and does not obey the saturation regime. This is the opposite of what we saw for the main sequence, in which the G-, K- and M-type stars show clear dependency to the Rossby number; (iii) The positive relationship between the magnetic features stability and their relative coverage and contrast remains true on the SGB, though it has lower dependency coefficient in comparison with the MS; (iv) Magnetic proxies and flare indexes of the SGB stars increase with increasing the relative mass of the convective zone