Type: Talk
Session: Galaxy Morphology and Low Surface Brightness Features
Author: Sarah Brough

Abstract: Intracluster light (ICL) is the diffuse, extended stellar light observed to spread across the centre of galaxy groups and clusters. Due to the nature of galaxy merging and cluster evolution this low surface brightness light provides a holistic trace of the star formation histories of galaxies in the cluster environment. However, this light is very faint and challenging to measure so samples to date have been small. I will present our research in preparation for large samples of low surface brightness observations from LSST. We have analysed LSST-like mock images from 4 cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, comparing the ICL measurement techniques of 8 observers and 3 simulators. We do not find significant differences between the different observational ICL measurement techniques however we do find intriguing differences in ICL fraction as a function of simulation measurement method (kinematic or image-based) and as a function of cluster relaxation.