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An extended cold gas absorber in a central cluster galaxy

Smith, Russell J.; Edge, Alastair C.

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Abstract

We present the serendipitous discovery of an extended cold gas structure projected close to the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) of the z = 0.045 cluster Abell 3716, from archival integral field spectroscopy. The gas is revealed through narrow Na D line absorption, seen against the stellar light of the BCG, which can be traced for ∼25 kpc, with a width of 2–4 kpc. The gas is offset to higher velocity than the BCG (by ∼100 km s−1), showing that it is infalling rather than outflowing; the intrinsic linewidth is ∼80 km s−1 (FWHM). Very weak H α line emission is detected from the structure, and a weak dust absorption feature is suggested from optical imaging, but no stellar counterpart has been identified. We discuss some possible interpretations for the absorber: as a projected low-surface-brightness galaxy, as a stream of gas that was stripped from an infalling cluster galaxy or as a ‘retired’ cool-core nebula filament.

Citation

Smith, R. J., & Edge, A. C. (2017). An extended cold gas absorber in a central cluster galaxy. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 471(1), L66-L70. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slx107

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 23, 2017
Online Publication Date Jul 6, 2017
Publication Date Oct 11, 2017
Deposit Date Jul 27, 2017
Publicly Available Date Aug 2, 2017
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Electronic ISSN 1745-3933
Publisher Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 471
Issue 1
Pages L66-L70
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slx107
Related Public URLs https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.08533

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Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters. © 2017. The Authors.
Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.





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