Formation and Evolution of Brightest Cluster Galaxies: nature vs nurture?

Speaker: Yen-Ting Lin (ASIAA) In Person and zoom

Zoom info: https://stanford.zoom.us/my/sihanyuan?pwd=QnpsUHZWWGJ2ekVYWmZVL3BmM0gzZ…

The formation and evolution of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), the most massive galaxies in the universe, is not a well-understood issue in astrophysics.  Are BCGs special compared to other cluster member galaxies?  If so, were they born special, or they were formed initially just like other galaxies, but gradually became special?  To answer these questions, we first show that the merger rates of BCGs based on MaNGA integral field spectroscopic data are in reasonable agreement with the predictions from IllustrisTNG.  Encouraged by the success of the model, we then employ statistical tools to examine the growth history of model BCGs in IllustrisTNG to see whether BCGs are a special population, and try to answer the "nature" vs "nurture" issue regarding BCGs.