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Dwarf galaxies in observed and simulated galaxy clusters
Author(s) -
Lisker T.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
astronomische nachrichten
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-3994
pISSN - 0004-6337
DOI - 10.1002/asna.201211691
Subject(s) - physics , dwarf galaxy , astrophysics , dwarf galaxy problem , astronomy , galaxy , galaxy cluster , dwarf spheroidal galaxy , luminosity , milky way , population , cluster (spacecraft) , interacting galaxy , demography , sociology , computer science , programming language
Galaxy clusters are populated by thousands of low‐mass galaxies, with hundreds of them already within stellar masses of 10 8 < M * ≤ 10 9.5 M ⊙ and magnitudes of –16 < M r < –19 mag. While objects in this regime are commonly termed “dwarfs”, they are not as faint and diffuse as many of the known Milky Way satellites. Their observed complexity, particularly regarding the dominant early‐type dwarf population, is still poorly understood and requires models and simulations of environmental influence on dwarfs. Studying cluster dwarf galaxies at the current time is motivated by two facts: (i) for nearby clusters, multicolour observational samples exist that are complete in the above luminosity range and cover a substantial portion of the cluster; (ii) state‐of‐the‐art semi‐analytic models based on high‐resolution N‐body simulations, reaching down to dwarf masses, have recently become available. Here I show how comparisons of models and observations can serve as a tool for studying the evolutionary history of low‐mass galaxy populations in today's clusters (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)