2002/07/31 by Priyamvada Natarajan, Jean-Paul Kneib, Jean‐Paul Kneib +1 · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/345399
published as Astrophys.J. 580 (2002) L11-L16 · minor revisions, ApJ Letters in press, matches print version
arxiv created 2002/10/23 · openalex publication_date 2002/11/04 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
In this Letter, we present the results of our study of galaxy-galaxy lensing in massive cluster lenses spanning z = 0.17-0.58, utilizing high-quality archival Hubble Space Telescope data. Local anisotropies in the shear maps are assumed to arise from dark matter substructure within these clusters. Associating the substructure with bright early-type cluster galaxies, we quantify the properties of typical L * cluster members in a statistical fashion. The fraction of total mass associated with individual galaxies within the inner regions of these clusters ranges from 10% to 20%, implying that the bulk of the dark matter in massive lensing clusters is smoothly distributed. Looking at the properties of the cluster galaxies, we find strong evidence (>3 σ significance) that a fiducial early-type L * galaxy in these clusters has a mass distribution that is tidally truncated compared with equivalent luminosity galaxies in the field. In fact, we exclude field galaxy scale dark halos for these cluster early types at greater than 10 σ significance. We compare the tidal radii obtained from this lensing analysis with the central density of the cluster potentials and find a correlation that is in excellent agreement with theoretical expectations of tidal truncation: log r ∝ (-0.6 ± 0.2) log ρ 0 .