No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2016
The Hubble (magnitude-redshift) diagram for brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) is a classic cosmological tool, widely studied because of the remarkably small dispersion (∼ 0.3 mag) in the absolute optical magnitudes of low redshift BCGs (Postman and Lauer 1995). Extending the BCG Hubble diagram to higher redshifts would greatly enhance its role as a cosmological probe, but this has been frustrated by several technical problems:
– the conventional means of cluster selection in the optical become increasingly compromised by projection effects at z > 0.1
– at higher redshifts the interpretation of optical magnitudes becomes increasingly complicated by the effects of possible star formation.