Santa Maria, november 16th of 2020

Summary

• Introduction
• Objective
• Methodology
• Morphometric Parameters
• Results
• Conclusions
 Introduction
• Brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) constitute the most massive
and luminous stellar structures in the Universe.

• They usually reside in the densest regions of clusters of galaxies,

close to their centers (van den Bosch et al. 2005).

• Besides their large masses and typical location, BCGs have been
shown to present other distinct properties.

• In particular, their major axis tends to be aligned with the

largescale distribution of galaxies (e.g. West et al. 2017).

• They present a larger probability of hosting a radio-loud active

galactic nucleus than non-BCGs of similar masses (Best et al.
2007).

• This shows that BCGs develop differently from other galaxies

due at least partly to their special location, which indirectly
connects their evolution to the evolution of their host clusters.
Figure: the BCG from the cluster Abell S740.
 Objective

• In this work, we introduce the morphometric indices to perform the

morphological classification of BCGs. Our work has three main goals:
• (a) to investigate if the morphometric indices are a sensible tool to BCG
classification.
• (b) to evaluate if, and how, the behaviour of BCGs in the space of morphometric
parameters correlate with their stellar masses.
• (c) to check how the masses of BCGs of different classes respond to their parent
halo masses.
Methodology
• In our study, we select two complementary samples of BCGs presented in the literature: Our primary
sample is defined by Von Der Linden et al. (2007), hereafter vdL sample; and our secondary sample
of BCGs is drawn from the Wen, Han & Liu (2012) catalogue of clusters of galaxies.
• We then download the frames from the Science Archive Server (SAS).
• The Petrosian radius of the BCG and its precise coordinates are obtained with the code
SEXTRACTOR (Bertin & Arnouts 1996).
• We then create a stamp centralized in the coordinates of the BCG and limited to twice the galaxy
Petrosian radius in linear dimensions. On this stamp, we perform the calculation of the morphometric
parameters, using the code MORFOMETRYKA (MFMTK for short).
• MORFOMETRYKA is an algorithm developed in the PYTHON language for automatic
identification of structural and shape properties of galaxies in large surveys, presented in Ferrari et al.
(2015). Besides performing one and two-dimensional brightness distribution fits, MFMTK derives
the morphometric parameters that can be used to establish the morphology of a given galaxy.
 Morphometric parameters
• The parameters calculated by MFMTK are:

• Concentration C, two concentration indices are included, C1 and C2. Where C1 is defined as the logarithmic ratio of the
radii containing 80 and 20 per cent of the galaxy light, while in C2 the ratio is between the radii containing 90 and 50 per
cent.

• Rotational asymmetry A1, two other asymmetry indices, A2 and A3, defined by the Pearson and Spearman correlation
coefficients between an image and its 180-deg-rotated counterpart.

• The smoothness coefficient S in general measures the small scale structures in the galaxy image.

• The coefficient Gini G measures the lux distribution among the pixels of a galaxy image.

• The entropy of information H (Shannon entropy, e.g. Bishop (2007)) is used here to quantify the distribution of pixel
values in the image.

• Spirality indice σψ take into account the spiral arms, rings and bars in galaxies, albeit they are a major and important
emphasis of human based classication.
 Results
• When we look how the BCGs behave in the morphometric parameters, we can notice that σψ seems to better
discriminate both M and S galaxies as compared to A1, also we choose the concentration parameter C2, that is more
sensitive to the outer regions of the galaxy. We also choose the concentration C1 as a ‘baseline’ variable for comparison
with C2 and σψ.

• Using these three variables, we introduce two ‘diagnostic diagrams’ for BCGs: the C1 × C2 plane (hereafter CC diagram),
that indicates how two profile shape parameters correlate, and the C1 × σψ plane (hereafter CS diagram), sensitive to the
presence of non-elliptical features.
 Results
• For the CC diagrams for all galaxies E, cD, S and M in the vdL sample. Elliptical BCGs populate a welldefined linear
region with some outliers at very low concentration. cD galaxies, on the other hand, are distributed over a much wider area.
Spiral + S0 galaxies are characterized by C1 and C2 values a little lower than the E galaxies. Mergers, not unexpectedly,
distribute in a very irregular way and extend to verylow concentration values, in particular C2.
• For the CS diagram, elliptical BCGs populate a locus of very low sigma values, except for a number of outliers at log σψ >
−1.0. cD galaxies are once again distributed across a much wider are.Mergers are characterized by intermediate to high
spiralities, but dominate at σψ > −0.5.
 Results
• The main strength of the CS
diagram is to allow for an eficiente
detection of asymmetries, spiral-
like features and bars, as we can
see in the figure 9.
• We show in figure 10 only galaxies
in classes E and cD. Taking into
account that systematically larger
and brighter envelopes produce a
‘loop’ inthe CC diagram, we
introduce a sequence of dividing
lines which try to encapsulate
different degrees of importance of
the envelope in a BCG.
Conclusion
We perform a morphometric analysis with the code MFMTK(Ferrari et al. 2015) of a sample of BCGs
drawn from Zhao et al. (2015a) and Wen et al. (2012). This is the first extensive application of
morphometric indices for BCG classification. The derivation of asymmetries, concentrations, entropy,
spirality and axial ratio is performed on r-band images from SDSS DR12, and a classification scheme
is proposed. We then investigate the stellar masses of BCGs in different classes and the velocity
dispersions of their parent haloes. Our main conclusions are as follows:
(i) Different classes of BCGs present consistently distinct values of almost all the measured
morphometric parameters. A preliminary grouping analysis resulted in a good separation between
the input classes, opening the possibility of future exploration of the complete morphometric
parameter space for BCG classification purposes.
(ii) The parameter space C1 × σψ (‘CS’ diagram) was shown to be efficient in separating spiral + S0
BCGs as well as merging objects from elliptical and cD BCGs. On the other hand, galaxies in the
C1 × C2 parameter space (‘CC’ diagram) become systematically offset from the locus of elliptical
BCGs as they develop cD-like extended envelopes.We propose a set of dividing lines for galaxies
in these two planes, allowing for a comprehensive, redshift-independente classification between
spiral + S0, mergers, and spheroidal galaxies with distinct envelope contributions.