Projeto Observacional para 2016A - SO2016A-022

Autor: Paulo Lopes
Instituição: UFRJ
e-mail: plopes@astro.ufrj.br

Co-autores:
Thiago S. Gonçalves
Andre Ribeiro
Raquel Nascimento
Karin Delmestre
Laurie Riguccini
Aldee Charbonnier
Marco Grossi
Sandro Barboza Rembold
Yolanda TEJA
Christine Jones
William Forman
Felipe Santos
Bruna Vajgel
Ana Chies-Santos
Eduardo S. Cypriano
Rogerio Monteiro

Título: Galaxy Evolution within Interacting Galaxy Clusters

Resumo: We propose to use the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) at the Blanco 4-m telescope to investigate galaxy evolution in interacting clusters of galaxies, previously selected by the Planck satellite, and also observed with the Chandra X-ray observatory. For each of nine merging clusters we plan to obtain deep imaging (down to ~26th magnitude AB). The objects are very X-ray luminous (LX > 10^45 erg/s) and represent interacting clusters in different stages of the merging process (undisturbed, strongly interacting, and post-merger systems). We will be able to investigate different processes acting on the intracluster gas, galaxy and matter distribution. This wide deep data will be unique, being used to investigate the galaxy morphology and colour-density relations in all types of environments, from the extreme field to the clusters and in the transition regions between them. We will sample up to the turnaround radius (~5xR200) of the clusters, as well as the large scale structure surrounding these systems, and the filaments within interacting clusters. These data will also be valuable to characterize the star-formation environmental variation according to the dynamical status of the clusters where galaxies reside. We also plan to estimate the IntraCluster Light (ICL) for these systems, and to compare the gas, galaxy and mass maps.