Brightest Cluster Galaxies at the Present Epoch

Understand

We have observed 433 z<=0.08 brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) in a full-sky survey of Abell clusters.

• The BCG Hubble diagram is consistent to within 2% of a Omega_m=0.3, Lambda=0.7 Hubble relation.
• The L_m-alpha relation for BCGs, which uses alpha, the log-slope of the BCG photometric curve of growth, to predict metric luminosity, L_m, has 0.27 mag residuals.
• We measure central stellar velocity dispersions, sigma, of the BCGs, finding the Faber-Jackson relation to flatten as the metric aperture grows to include an increasing fraction of the total BCG luminosity.