1304.6696 (Yuanyuan Zhang et al.)

Studying Inter-Cluster Galaxy Filaments Through Stacking GMBCG Galaxy Cluster Pairs    [PDF]

Yuanyuan Zhang, Jörg P. Dietrich, Timothy A. McKay, Erin S. Sheldon, Alex T. Q. Nguyen

We present a method to study the photometric properties of galaxies in filaments by stacking the galaxy populations between pairs of galaxy clusters. Using Sloan Digital Sky Survey data, this method can detect the inter-cluster filament galaxy overdensity with a significance of $\sim 5 \sigma$ out to $z=0.40$. Using this approach, we study the $g-r$ color and luminosity distribution of filament galaxies as a function of redshift. Consistent with expectation, filament galaxies are bimodal in their color distribution and contain a larger blue galaxy population than clusters. Filament galaxies are also generally fainter than cluster galaxies. More interestingly, the observed filament population shows redshift evolution at $0.12View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.6696