On the Origin of Faint Intracluster Starlight in Coma

Using N-body numerical simulations, we examine possible mechanisms for theorigin of the intracluster starlight features recently discovered in the Comacluster of galaxies. We show that tidal interactions of a ``normal'' ellipticalgalaxy with a symmetrically distributed dark matter potential do not producethe observed intracluster starlight features. A head-on collision of two normalellipticals does, however, explain the origin of the intracluster features withsurface brightness about 26 mag/arcsec$^2$). Another possible explanation forthe intracluster starlight features is galactic tidal interactions with massiveintracluster substructures. The presence of substructures in Coma with adensity of $\sim$ 0.1 times the density in the center of the galaxy, and with atotal mass about three orders of magnitude larger than the mass of a normalelliptical galaxy, would account for the observations.Comment: 11 pages, including 5 figures / to appear in Astrophysical Journal (2001) vol. 54