at Paranal, Chile. In Wide Field Mode MUSE provides a square arcmin field-of- view, with a spatial sampling of 0.2 arcsec per pixel. The wavelength coverage runs from 4750˚A to 9350˚A (equivalent to optical VRI bands), with a spectral sampling of 0.125 ˚A and a spectral resolution ranging from ∼ 3.0˚A at 4800˚A to ∼ 2.6˚A at 9300˚A. It produces a datacube of dimensions 300 × 300 × 3681. At the time of the observations of these data, MUSE was only available in Wide Field Mode, with natural seeing, but in the future MUSE will be available in a Narrow Field Mode – providing a 7.5 square arcsec field-of-view – and will be combined with adaptive optics.
MUSE utilises an image slicer based IFU. First the field-of-view is split into twenty-four 2.5 arcsec thick slices, or “channels”, which are then fed into separate IFUs. Each of these is then split again into a further 48 slices, providing a total of 1152 ‘mini slits’. Each block of 48 mini-slits are in turn fed into one of the 24 spectrographs.
5.4
Target Selection
The BCGs in these Chapters are primarily drawn from the parent sample of 981 X-ray selected clusters described in Chapter 2. In order to identify the BCG for each cluster in our sample, a visual inspection of the Pan-STARRS 3π (Tonry et al.,2012) optical imaging was conducted. It was noticed that a few tens of these BCGs appear to exhibit indicators consistent with a recent/ongoing galaxy–galaxy merger, such as asymmetric envelopes, or are likely to merge in the future given the presence of a (some) substantially massive companion galaxy (galaxies). These are BCG systems with complex morphologies; primarily galaxies with multiple nuclei or very nearby companion galaxies, as well as some with plume-like asymmetric envelopes or shells. As discussed in Chapter 1 the issue of the stellar mass growth of BCGs is a debated field of study, and BCGs in the process of ongoing mergers are rare. As such we were awarded time with MUSE to observe a subset of 32 of these complex BCGs (PI Green; programme ID 095.A-0159(A)) and investigate kinematic information for these systems (see Chapter 6). Unfortunately, only 25 of these observations were
5.4. Target Selection 126
completed within the observational period and two were taken in low grade weather conditions – leaving a total of 23 observations of sufficient quality for the analysis. Examples of the MUSE targets are presented in Figure 5.2, showing the PS1 3π i -band imaging, which shows the unusual nature of these galaxies. Details of the individual targets are given in Table 5.1.
The redshift–X-ray luminosity distribution of the MUSE targets are overlaid onto that of the parent cluster sample in Figure 5.3, from which it is clear that the MUSE targets are a fairly representative subsample of the parent clusters, in terms of their LX–z distribution, with no clear preference toward high or low X-ray
luminosity clusters. Note we restricted our MUSE target list to clusters at z < 0.25 so that a high signal-to-noise could be achieved in relatively short exposures and the kinematics could be spatially resolved. It appears that there is a potential deficit of MUSE–selected targets in high X-ray luminosity clusters. It is possible that this could be related to the fact you may expect the more massive clusters to be the most mature and well established systems, having already undergone the majority of their growth, which may similarly be the case for their central galaxies. However, it is more likely to be due to the low number of targets. There are 784 clusters within z < 0.25, 65 of which are above an X-ray luminosity of 5 × 1044erg s−1 (the L
X of
the most X-ray luminous of the MUSE targets) and 23 targets are observed with MUSE. So we would expect that, if the MUSE targets are randomly drawn from the parent cluster sample, then on average only 65/(784/23) = 1.9 MUSE targets should reside within that LX > 5 × 1044erg s−1 range. So the statistical likelihood
of a BCG not residing here, due to random sampling, is quite high and hence the result is unsurprising. A similar argument explains the lack of MUSE–selected targets at the low LX range of our cluster sample. There are only 39 clusters at LX
< 0.23 × 1044erg s−1 (the L
X of our least X-ray luminous MUSE–selected cluster),
so you would expect only 1.1 MUSE targets to be in this LX interval.
Due to the extended nature of BCGs and the relatively low redshift of our clus- ter distribution the best seeing was not a requirement for these observations. This, combined with the relatively short necessary exposure times, meant these targets were ideally suited for filling gaps in observation queue for MUSE. When experi-
5.4. Target Selection 127
A368
RXJ2104
RXJ1336
A1663
A2626
A3528
RXJ1353
A3560
A2566
S700
A1773
A367
A2654
A3771
A2533
A1317
A1858
A3530
S84
A1677
A3934
A193
RBS459
Figure 5.2: The full sample of 23 complex BCGs targeted by our MUSE programme. Tiles are PS1 3π/VST ATLAS/KiDS i -band/FORS acquisition R-band imaging, corresponding to 25 arcsec squared.
5.4. Target Selection 128
encing winds from the North, pointing limitations apply at the VLT, so in order to maximise our observational efficiency – by having targets distributed uniformly across the sky – the PS1 selected BCGs were also supplemented with Southern tar- gets (DEC< 30 degs). These Southern sources were selected as exhibiting similar properties to our primary sample selection, but in the acquisition images of the FORS1/FORS2 spectroscopic follow-up, on the VLT, of X-ray selected REFLEX (B¨ohringer et al., 2004) survey clusters (Edge et al. in prep). Due to the nature of these images, this supplementary sample does not represent a comprehensive sam- ple of the Southern sky, but can be co-added in the statistical interpretation of our primary PS1 based targets.
The selection criteria for these BCGs generally required the presence of at least one companion galaxy in close proximity to the BCG, which has a comparable lu- minosity to the BCG. As such, BCGs with only small satellite galaxies close to the BCG were not selected. The majority (21/23) of these observations were selected on exhibiting multiple components/nearby companions. Of these, 11 systems exhibit two, or more, substantially massive close companions. The other 10 systems exhibit a single substantial companion, often in what appear to be dumbbell-like systems. Two of these systems exhibit asymmetric envelopes (plumes), in addition to the mul- tiple components; A2626 and A2566, and one system, RXJ1353, appears to show a shell in the outer envelope. The exceptions to this selection criteria are A2533, which was selected on exhibiting unusual star forming/dusty features, and A3560 which was selected on the appearance of a sharp shell–like substructure within its extended envelope, which is thought to represent a late stage in the merger process. Asymmetric envelopes, or plumes, seen in A2626 and A2566 and A3560, likely in- dicate that some interaction has already happened between the two components. This is visually similar to that of the BCG major merger of CL0958+4702 inRines et al.(2007).
5.4. Target Selection 129 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Redshift, z
0.1 1.0 10.0L
X(
10
44er
gs
− 1)
Figure 5.3: The cluster X-ray luminosity against redshift distribution. The crosses show the full parent cluster sample, with the darker crosses, left of the dashed line, showing the subset of 784 clusters below our selection threshold for MUSE follow-up of z < 0.25. Overlaid, as the filled (red) stars, are the position of the 23 MUSE targets. This demonstrates our MUSE targets have a broad distribution across LX–
5.4. Target Selection 130
Cluster ID Redshift LX BCG RA BCG DEC MUSE FOV Selection
(1044erg s−1) (J2000) (J2000) (kpc2) S84 0.1100 1.77 00:49:22.8 −29:31:13 117 > 3 Components A193 0.0491 1.88 01:25:07.6 +08:41:56 56 3 Components A367 0.0891 1.35 02:36:37.1 −19:22:17 97 2 Components A368 0.2200 4.23 02:37:27.7 −26:30:29 208 2 Components A1317 0.0695 0.23 11:35:12.9 −13:33:07 78 2 Components A3528 0.0574 1.31 12:54:41.2 −29:13:40 65 2 Components A1663 0.0843 1.03 13:02:52.6 −02:30:59 93 2 Components A1677 0.1832 3.64 13:05:50.8 +30:54:17 180 3 Components RXJ1336 0.1768 1.61 13:36:00.0 −03:31:29 175 3 Components A1773 0.0776 1.04 13:42:09.6 +02:13:38 86 3 Components RXJ1353 0.0468 4.58 13:53:26.5 −27:54:08 54 3 Components A1858 0.1406 0.81 14:07:56.7 −04:19:26 145 2 Components
A2533 0.1110 1.78 23:07:13.9 −15:13:27 118 Dust and SF
A2566 0.0821 2.04 23:16:05.0 −20:27:48 90 2 Components A2626 0.0565 1.32 23:36:30.5 +21:08:48 64 2 Components A2654 0.1252 0.73 23:44:22.8 −07:25:27 131 3 Components RBS459 0.0698 0.50 03:40:41.2 −45:41:20 78 3 Components S700 0.0796 0.83 12:36:41.3 −33:55:33 88 2 Components A3530 0.0544 0.74 12:54:36.1 −30:20:52 62 Shells A3560 0.0489 0.83 13:22:22.6 −33:08:22 56 2 Components A3771 0.0796 0.81 21:29:42.6 −50:49:27 88 2 Components RXJ2104 0.0491 0.56 21:04:51.5 −51:49:25 56 2 Components A3934 0.2240 5.01 22:53:32.6 −33:43:05 211 > 3 Components
Table 5.1: Cluster ID, redshift and X-ray luminosity, BCG RA and DEC, physical size of one arcmin (i.e. the dimensions of a MUSE cube) in kpc and primary reason for target selection. Top: clusters drawn from the parent sample defined by the PS1 footprint (Chapter 2), bottom: supplementary Southern targets from FORS acquisition imaging.