A. Chu, F. Durret, A. Ellien, F. Sarron, C. Adami, I. Márquez, N. Martinet, T. de Boer, K. C. Chambers, J.-C. Cuillandre, S. Gwyn, E. A. Magnier, A. W. McConnachie, and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España)
This is an Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited., Context. The formation process of fossil groups (FGs) is still under debate, and, because of their relative rarity, large samples of such objects are still missing. Aims. The aim of the present paper is to increase the sample of known FGs, to analyse the properties of their brightest group galaxies (BGGs), and to compare them with a control sample of non-FG BGGs. Methods. We extracted a sample of 87 FG and 100 non-FG candidates from a large spectroscopic catalogue of haloes and galaxies. For all the objects with data available in UNIONS (initially the Canada France Imaging Survey, CFIS) in the u and r bands, and/or in an extra r-band processed to preserve all low-surface-brightness features (rLSB), we performed a 2D photometric fit of the BGG with GALFIT with one or two Sérsic components. We also analysed how the subtraction of the intracluster light (ICL) contribution modifies the BGG properties. From the SDSS spectra available for the BGGs of 65 FGs and 82 non-FGs, we extracted the properties of their stellar populations with Firefly. To complement our study, and in order to provide a detailed illustration of the possible origin of emission lines in the FG BGGs, involving the presence or absence of an AGN, we investigated the origin of the emission lines in a nearby FG that is dominated by the NGC 4104 galaxy. Results. Morphologically, a single Sérsic profile can fit most objects in the u band, while two Sérsics are needed in the r and rLSB bands, both for FGs and non-FGs. Non-FG BGGs cover a larger range of Sérsic index n. FG BGGs follow the Kormendy relation (mean surface brightness versus effective radius) previously derived for almost 1000 brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), while the majority of non-FGs BGGs are located below this relation, with fainter mean surface brightnesses. This suggests that FG BGGs have evolved similarly to BCGs, and non-FG BGGs have evolved differently from both FG BGGs and BCGs. All the above properties can be strongly modified by the subtraction of the ICL contribution. Based on spectral fitting, the stellar populations of FG and non-FG BGGs do not differ significantly. Conclusions. FG and non-FG BGGs differ from one another in terms of their morphological properties and Kormendy relation, suggesting they have had different formation histories. However, it is not possible to trace differences in their stellar populations or in their large-scale distributions. © The Authors 2023., F.D. acknowledges support from CNES. I.M. acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU, through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709), and through PID2019-106027GB-C41. F.S. acknowledges support from a CNES Postdoctoral Fellowship. This work is based on data obtained as part of UNIONS (initially CFIS), using data from a CFHT large program of the National Research Council of Canada and the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Based on observations obtained with MegaPrime/MegaCam, a joint project of CFHT and CEA Saclay, at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institut National des Science de l’Univers (INSU) of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) of France, and the University of Hawaii. Pan-STARRS is a project of the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii, and is supported by the NASA SSO Near Earth Observation Program under grants 80NSSC18K0971, NNX14AM74G, NNX12AR65G, NNX13AQ47G, NNX08AR22G, and by the State of Hawaii. Funding for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, and the Participating Institutions. SDSS-IV acknowledges support and resources from the Center for High-Performance Computing at the University of Utah. The SDSS web site is www.sdss.org. SDSS-IV is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS Collaboration including the Brazilian Participation Group, the Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Mellon University, the Chilean Participation Group, the French Participation Group, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Based in part on observations made at Observatoire de Haute-Provence (CNRS), France. This research has made use of the MISTRAL database, based on observations made at Observatoire de Haute Provence (CNRS), France, with the MISTRAL spectro-imager, and operated at CeSAM (LAM), Marseille, France. Based on observations collected at Centro Astronomico Hispano en Andalucia (CAHA) at Calar Alto, operated jointly by Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (CSIC) and Junta de Andalucia. Based on observations taken with the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma (Spain)., With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (CEX2021-001131-S).