The Luminosity Profiles of Brightest Cluster Galaxies

Abstract

(Abridged) We have derived detailed R band luminosity profiles and structural parameters for a total of 430 brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), down to a limiting surface brightness of 24.5 mag/arcsec^2. Light profiles were initially fitted with a Sersic's R^(1/n) model, but we found that 205 (~48) BCGs require a double component model to accurately match their light profiles. The best fit for these 205 galaxies is an inner Sersic model, with indices n~1-7, plus an outer exponential component. Thus, we establish the existence of two categories of the BCGs luminosity profiles: single and double component profiles. We found that double profile BCGs are brighter ~0.2 mag than single profile BCG. In fact, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test applied to these subsamples indicates that they have different total magnitude distributions, with mean values M_R=-23.8 +/- 0.6 mag for single profile BCGs and M_R=-24.0 +/- 0.5 mag for double profile BCGs. We find that partial luminosities for both subsamples are indistinguishable up to r = 15 kpc, while for r > 20 kpc the luminosities we obtain are on average 0.2 mag brighter for double profile BCGs. This result indicates that extra-light for double profile BCGs does not come from the inner region but from the outer regions of these galaxies. The best fit slope of the Kormendy relation for the whole sample is a = 3.13 +/- 0.04$. However, when fitted separately, single and double profile BCGs show different slopes: a_(single) = 3.29 +/- 0.06 and a_(double)= 2.79 +/- 0.08. On the other hand, we did not find differences between these two BCGs categories when we compared global cluster properties such as the BCG-projected position relative to the cluster X-ray center emission, X-ray luminosity, or BCG orientation with respect to the cluster position angle.Comment: August 2011 issue of ApJS, volume 195, 15 http://iopscience.iop.org/0067-0049/195/2/1