On the Growth of Diffuse Light from Simulations of Galaxy Clusters

Deep surface photometry reveals the presence in a good number of galaxy clusters, as well as in their smaller counterparts, galaxy groups, of an extended, diffuse luminous component that fills the space between galaxies. This intracluster light (ICL) is believed to originate from the disruption of the outermost regions of the galaxies that make up these systems. Our aim in this work is to make use of controlled numerical simulations of pre-virialized clusters to study the formation of the diffuse ICL, and investigate its potential to describe the assembly history of such systems of galaxies. We are currently using our simulations to track the growth of the ICL over cosmic time, tracing its evolution across clusters spanning a range of masses and galaxy memberships. Here, we present our first results, where we analyzed the relationship of ICL formation with the mass and size of the brightest galaxy in the cluster and its dependence on both the merger fraction and the efficiency of interactions.We acknowledge financial support from the Spanish state agency PID2019–106027GB–C43. MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 has also provided additional support through the Centre of Excellence Severo Ochoa's award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía under contract SEV–2017–0709 and the Centre of Excellence María de Maeztu's award for the Institut de Ciències del Cosmos at the Universitat de Barcelona under contract CEX2019–000918–M. BBW acknowledges financial support by the PRE2020-093715 grant from the SEV–2017–0709 project