Near-infrared luminosity function and colours of dwarf galaxies in the Coma cluster |
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Authors: | Bahram Mobasher & Neil Trentham |
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Institution: | Astrophysics Group, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BZ,;Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu HI 96822, USA |
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Abstract: | We present K -band observations of the low-luminosity galaxies in the Coma cluster, which are responsible for the steep upturn in the optical luminosity function at M R~?16, discovered recently. The main results of this study are as follows. (i) The optical–near-infrared colours of these galaxies imply that they are dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The median B ? K colour for galaxies with ?19.3< MK 16.3 is 3.6 mag. (ii) The K -band luminosity function in the Coma cluster is not well constrained, because of the uncertainties due to the field-to-field variance of the background. However, within the estimated large errors, this is consistent with the R -band luminosity function, shifted by ~3 mag. (iii) Many of the cluster dwarfs lie in a region of the B ? K versus B ? R colour–colour diagram where background galaxies are rare ( B ? K <5; 1.2< B ? R <1.6). Local dwarf spheroidal galaxies lie in this region too. This suggests that a better measurement of the K -band cluster luminosity can be made if the field-to-field variance of the background can be measured as a function of colour, even if it is large. (iv) If we assume that none of the galaxies in the region of the B ? K versus B ? R plane given in (iii) in our cluster fields are background, and that all the cluster galaxies with 15.5< K <18.5 lie in this region of the plane, then we measure α=?1.41+0.34?0.37 for ?19.3< MK ?16.3, where α is the logarithmic slope of the luminosity function. The uncertainties in this number come from counting statistics. |
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Keywords: | galaxies: clusters: individual: Coma galaxies: luminosity function mass function infrared: galaxies |
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