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ABSTRACT Clusters of galaxies trace the most non-linear peaks in the cosmic density field. The weak gravitational lensing of background galaxies by clusters can allow us to infer their masses. However, galaxies associated with the local environment of the cluster can also be intrinsically aligned due to the local tidal gradient, contaminating any cosmology derived from the lensing signal. We measure this intrinsic alignment in Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 1 redMaPPer clusters. We find evidence of a non-zero mean radial alignment of galaxies within clusters between redshifts 0.1–0.7. We find a significant systematic in the measured ellipticities of cluster satellite galaxies that we attribute to the central galaxy flux and other intracluster light. We attempt to correct this signal, and fit a simple model for intrinsic alignment amplitude (AIA) to the measurement, finding AIA = 0.15 ± 0.04, when excluding data near the edge of the cluster. We find a significantly stronger alignment of the central galaxy with the cluster dark matter halo at low redshift and with higher richness and central galaxy absolute magnitude (proxies for cluster mass). This is an important demonstration of the ability of large photometric data sets like DES to provide direct constraints on the intrinsic alignment of galaxies within clusters. These measurements can inform improvements to small-scale modelling and simulation of the intrinsic alignment of galaxies to help improve the separation of the intrinsic alignment signal in weak lensing studies.
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Group-scale intrinsic galaxy alignments in the Illustris-TNG and MassiveBlack-II simulations
ABSTRACT We study the alignments of satellite galaxies, and their anisotropic distribution, with respect to location and orientation of their host central galaxy in MassiveBlack-II (MB-II) and IllustrisTNG simulations. We find that: the shape of the satellite system in haloes of mass ($$\gt 10^{13}\, h^{-1}\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$$) is well aligned with the shape of the central galaxy at z = 0.06 with the mean alignment between the major axes being ∼Δθ = 12° when compared to a uniform random distribution; that satellite galaxies tend to be anisotropically distributed along the major axis of the central galaxy with a stronger alignment in haloes of higher mass or luminosity; and that the satellite distribution is more anisotropic for central galaxies with lower star formation rate, which are spheroidal, and for red central galaxies. Radially, we find that satellites tend to be distributed along the major axis of the shape of the stellar component of central galaxies at smaller scales and the dark matter component on larger scales. We find that the dependence of satellite anisotropy on central galaxy properties and the radial distance is similar in both the simulations with a larger amplitude in MB-II. The orientation of satellite galaxies tends to point toward the location of the central galaxy at small scales and this correlation decreases with increasing distance, and the amplitude of satellite alignment is higher in high-mass haloes. However, the projected ellipticities do not exhibit a scale-dependent radial alignment, as has been seen in some observational measurements.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1716131
- PAR ID:
- 10286743
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Volume:
- 501
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0035-8711
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 5859 to 5872
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa3934
