Study of the central galaxies of fossil groups

• Grant number: 14/23386-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 04, 2014
• End date: January 20, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Astronomy - Extragalactic Astrophysics
• Principal Investigator: Claudia Lucia Mendes de Oliveira
• Grantee: Luiz Mauricio Azanha
• Supervisor: Eleazar Rodrigo Carrasco Damele
• Host Institution: Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas (IAG). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Gemini Observatory South, Chile
• Associated to the scholarship: 14/11339-1 - Galaxy groups and clusters: comparing the extremes of the luminosity gap, BP.IC

Abstract

Our project of scientific initiation is focused on the study of a large sample of groups and clusters selected from the Sloan database (the so called MaxBCG sample), in order to determine several parameters for the groups such as velocity dispersions, masses, virial radii, luminosity functions and select new samples of systems called fossil and dumbbell (fossil systems are those which have a magnitude difference between the first and the second brightest galaxies - Delta M12 - within the virial radius greater than 2.0 and dumbbell those with Delta M12 less the 0.5 magnitude, both in the r band). This BEPE project aims at complementing this project with the detailed stellar population study of three central galaxies of fossil groups which were observed with the Gemini North telescope and the GMOS instrument. With this study, we intend to learn how to reduce observational data from GMOS, which we have never done before, and to determine ages, metalicities and abundances of these systems as a function of radii, with the aim of investigating the possible formation scenarios of the brightest cluster galaxies in fossil groups. (AU)