The Diffuse Light Envelope of Luminous Red Galaxies

Leung, Y.; Zhang, Y.; Yanny, B.; Herner, K.; Annis, J.; Palmese, A.; Sampaio-Santos, H.; Strazzullo, V.; Aguena, M.; Allam, S.; Avila, S.; Bertin, E.; Bhargava, S.; Brooks, D.; Burke, D. L.; Carnero Rosell, A.; Carrasco Kind, M.; Carretero, J.; Costanzi, M.; da Costa, L. N.; Desai, S.; Diehl, H. T.; Doel, P.; Eifler, T. F.; Everett, S.; Flaugher, B.; Frieman, J.; García-Bellido, J.; Gaztanaga, E.; Gruen, D.; Gruendl, R. A.; Gschwend, J.; Gutierrez, G.; Honscheid, K.; James, D. J.; Kim, A. G.; Kuehn, K.; Kuropatkin, N.; Lima, M.; Maia, M. A. G.; Miquel, R.; Ogando, R. L. C.; Paz-Chinchón, F.; Plazas, A. A.; Romer, A. K.; Roodman, A.; Rykoff, E. S.; Sanchez, E.; Scarpine, V.; Schubnell, M.; Serrano, S.; Sevilla-Noarbe, I.; Smith, M.; Suchyta, E.; Swanson, M. E. C.; Varga, T. N.

doi:10.3847/2515-5172/abbd8d

We use a stacking method to study the radial light profiles of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) at redshift ~0.62 and ~0.25, out to a radial range of 200 kpc. We do not find noticeable evolution of the profiles at the two redshifts. The LRG profiles appear to be well approximated by a single Sérsic profile, although some excess light can be seen outside 60 kpc. We quantify the excess light by measuring the integrated flux and find that the excess is about 10%—a non-dominant but still nonnegligible component.