TY - JOUR
T1 - Reaching for the Edge I
T2 - probing the outskirts of massive galaxies with HSC, DECaLS, SDSS, and Dragonfly
AU - Li, Jiaxuan
AU - Huang, Song
AU - Leauthaud, Alexie
AU - Moustakas, John
AU - Danieli, Shany
AU - Greene, Jenny E.
AU - Abraham, Roberto
AU - Ardila, Felipe
AU - Kado-Fong, Erin
AU - Lokhorst, Deborah
AU - Lupton, Robert
AU - Price, Paul
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.
PY - 2022/10/1
Y1 - 2022/10/1
N2 - The outer light (stellar haloes) of massive galaxies has recently emerged as a possible low scatter tracer of dark matter halo mass. To test the robustness of outer light measurements across different data sets, we compare the 1D azimuthally averaged surface brightness profiles of massive galaxies using four independent data sets: the Hyper Suprime-Cam survey (HSC), the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey (DECaLS), the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and the Dragonfly Wide Field Survey (Dragonfly). We test the sky subtraction and proposed corrections for HSC and DECaLS. For galaxies at z < 0.05, Dragonfly has the best control of systematics, reaching surface brightness levels of μr ≈ 30 mag arcsec-2. At 0.19 < z < 0.50, HSC can reliably recover individual surface brightness profiles to μr ≈ 28.5 mag arcsec-2 (R = 100-150 kpc in semimajor axis). In a statistical sense, DECaLS agrees with HSC to R > 200 kpc. DECaLS and HSC measurements of the stellar mass contained within 100 kpc agree within 0.05 dex. Finally, we use weak lensing to show that measurements of outer light with DECaLS at 0.19 < z < 0.50 show a similar promise as HSC as a low scatter proxy of halo mass. The tests and results from this paper represent an important step forward for accurate measurements of the outer light of massive galaxies and demonstrate that outer light measurements from DECam imaging will be a promising method for finding galaxy clusters.
AB - The outer light (stellar haloes) of massive galaxies has recently emerged as a possible low scatter tracer of dark matter halo mass. To test the robustness of outer light measurements across different data sets, we compare the 1D azimuthally averaged surface brightness profiles of massive galaxies using four independent data sets: the Hyper Suprime-Cam survey (HSC), the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey (DECaLS), the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and the Dragonfly Wide Field Survey (Dragonfly). We test the sky subtraction and proposed corrections for HSC and DECaLS. For galaxies at z < 0.05, Dragonfly has the best control of systematics, reaching surface brightness levels of μr ≈ 30 mag arcsec-2. At 0.19 < z < 0.50, HSC can reliably recover individual surface brightness profiles to μr ≈ 28.5 mag arcsec-2 (R = 100-150 kpc in semimajor axis). In a statistical sense, DECaLS agrees with HSC to R > 200 kpc. DECaLS and HSC measurements of the stellar mass contained within 100 kpc agree within 0.05 dex. Finally, we use weak lensing to show that measurements of outer light with DECaLS at 0.19 < z < 0.50 show a similar promise as HSC as a low scatter proxy of halo mass. The tests and results from this paper represent an important step forward for accurate measurements of the outer light of massive galaxies and demonstrate that outer light measurements from DECam imaging will be a promising method for finding galaxy clusters.
KW - galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD
KW - galaxies: formation
KW - galaxies: photometry
KW - galaxies: structure
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U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stac2121
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stac2121
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85140428245
SN - 0035-8711
VL - 515
SP - 5335
EP - 5357
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
IS - 4
ER -