O VI Emission in Starbursting BCGs: An HST-COS Extension of "Reigniting the FUSE"
Abstract
In this extension of our "Reigniting the FUSE" series, we have obtained new far-ultraviolet spectroscopy of 3 starbursting brightest cluster galaxies with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) aboard HST. With these new data, in combination with archival COS data of 2 additional systems, we measure star formation rates (SFRs) from the young stellar continuum and cooling rates through 105.5 K gas with the O VI 1032,1038 mathringA doublet (ṀO VI). We use these measurements to increase the size of the "Reigniting the FUSE" sample, which itself contains high resolution far UV spectroscopy for 29 nearby massive elliptical galaxies from FUSE, and extend it 1 dex upwards in SFR and cooling rate. Our derived SFRs agree well with photometric GALEX+WISE SFRs from the literature. The new data also reinforce the previously observed trend in cooling efficiency (ṀO VI/Ṁmax; where Ṁmax is the X-ray luminosity-based cooling rate) versus mass, with groups cooling more efficiently than clusters by a factor of ∼4-5. When we isolate a sample of the most star-forming central galaxies, we find that the star formation rates, X-ray spectroscopic cooling rates, and UV spectroscopic cooling rates are all consistent with one another, on average, while retaining substantial system-to-system scatter, reflecting time-depenent multiphase condensation and cold gas reservoir evolution. The remainder of the sample, in contrast, overwhelmingly shows ratios of SFR/ṀO VI ∼ SFR/ṀX,spec ∼ 10%.
Related
- Reigniting the FUSE II: O VI Emission in Massive Elliptical Galaxies
- Reigniting the FUSE I: Star Formation in Massive Elliptical Galaxies
- Testing Offsets Between Cluster-Scale Halos and BCGs in Strong Lensing Models Using the Jackknife Method
- Rare Blue-core BCGs as Optical Signatures of ICM Cooling
- Extension and validation of the ZPEKTR code for determining the inclination angles of Be stars
BibTeX
@misc{reefe2026emission,
title = {{O VI Emission in Starbursting BCGs: An HST-COS Extension of "Reigniting the FUSE"}},
author = {Michael Reefe and Michael McDonald and Marios Chatzikos and Megan Donahue and Andrew C. Fabian and Massimo Gaspari and Eric Miller and Valeria Olivares and Taweewat Somboonpanyakul and G. Mark Voit},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.34579},
eprint = {2610.34579},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.34579},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - O VI Emission in Starbursting BCGs: An HST-COS Extension of "Reigniting the FUSE"
AU - Michael Reefe
AU - Michael McDonald
AU - Marios Chatzikos
AU - Megan Donahue
AU - Andrew C. Fabian
AU - Massimo Gaspari
AU - Eric Miller
AU - Valeria Olivares
AU - Taweewat Somboonpanyakul
AU - G. Mark Voit
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/25
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.34579
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.34579
AB - In this extension of our "Reigniting the FUSE" series, we have obtained new far-ultraviolet spectroscopy of 3 starbursting brightest cluster galaxies with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) aboard HST. With these new data, in combination with archival COS data of 2 additional systems, we measure star formation rates (SFRs) from the young stellar continuum and cooling rates through 10^5.5 K gas with the O VI 1032,1038 mathringA doublet (Ṁ_O VI). We use these measurements to increase the size of the "Reigniting the FUSE" sample, which itself contains high resolution far UV spectroscopy for 29 nearby massive elliptical galaxies from FUSE, and extend it 1 dex upwards in SFR and cooling rate. Our derived SFRs agree well with photometric GALEX+WISE SFRs from the literature. The new data also reinforce the previously observed trend in cooling efficiency (Ṁ_O VI/Ṁ_max; where Ṁ_max is the X-ray luminosity-based cooling rate) versus mass, with groups cooling more efficiently than clusters by a factor of ∼4-5. When we isolate a sample of the most star-forming central galaxies, we find that the star formation rates, X-ray spectroscopic cooling rates, and UV spectroscopic cooling rates are all consistent with one another, on average, while retaining substantial system-to-system scatter, reflecting time-depenent multiphase condensation and cold gas reservoir evolution. The remainder of the sample, in contrast, overwhelmingly shows ratios of SFR/Ṁ_O VI ∼ SFR/Ṁ_X,spec ∼ 10%.
ER -