Two-Color Surface Photometry of Brightest Cluster Members

Abstract

The Gunn g, r and i CCD images of a representative sample of 17 Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCM) have been analyzed in order to derive surface brightness and color profiles, together with geometrical parameters like eccentricity and position angle. The sample includes both X-ray and optically selected clusters, ranging in redshift from z=0.049 to z=0.191. We find that BCMs are substantially well described by de Vaucouleurs' law out to radii of $\sim 60-80$ kpc, and that color gradients are generally absent. Only in two cases we find a surface brightness excess with respect to the $r^{1/4}$ law, which for A150 is coupled with a change in the $g-r$ color. The rest frame colors of BCMs do not show any intrinsic dispersion. By parametrizing the environment with the local galaxy number density, we find that it is correlated with the BCM extension, i.e. BCMs with larger effective radii are found in denser environments.