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[47.02] The Mean Flux and Color of Diffuse Intracluster Light in 10 Clusters at 0.05 < z < 0.3

J.E. Krick, R.A. Bernstein (University of Michigan)

Surface brightness measurements of the diffuse intracluster light(ICL) in centrally concentrated, relaxed clusters have demonstrated that stars bound only to the cluster potential can contain anywhere from 5-50% of the total cluster flux. As such, this intracluster component is a considerable fraction of the stellar population and can be used to constrain models for the structure and evolution of clusters and their member galaxies. We are undertaking a program to measure the characteristics of the ICL (total flux, color, and substructure) as a function of cluster mass, morphology, and redshift. Our sample includes 10 clusters at low and moderate redshifts, observed with the LCO 40 inch telescope (B- and r-band) and 100 inch telescope (V- and r-band) respectively. We present here the reduction and analysis of one cluster in that sample, A3888. With 4-5 hour integration times on-source per filter, we have obtained a 1 \sigma surface brightness limit of ~29.6 mag arcsec {-2} in V band over arcminute scales and ~29.2 mag arcsec {-2} at the spatial resolution of the data (~1 arcsec).

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: jkrick@umich.edu

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.