A Multicolor Photometric Study of the Galaxy Cluster A2589: Dynamics, Luminosity Function, and Star Formation History

Smooth X-ray morphology and non-detection of a radio source at the center of A2589 indicate that it is a typical case of a well-relaxed regular galaxy cluster. In this paper, we present a multicolor photometry for A2589 (z = 0.0414) with 15 intermediate bands in the Beijing-Arizona-Taiwan-Connecticut (BATC) system which covers an optical wavelength range from 3000 Å to 10000 Å. The spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for more than 5000 sources are achieved down to V ~ 20 mag in about a 1 deg² field. A2589 has also been covered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in photometric mode only. A cross-identification of the BATC-detected galaxies with the SDSS photometric catalog yields 1199 galaxies brighter than i = 19.5 mag, among which 68 member galaxies with known spectroscopic redshifts are found. After combining the SDSS five-band photometric data and the BATC SEDs, photometric redshift is applied to these galaxies to select faint member galaxies. The color-magnitude relation is taken as a further restriction of early-type cluster galaxies. As a result, 106 galaxies are newly selected as member galaxies. Spatial distribution of member galaxies shows a north-south elongation which agrees with the X-ray brightness profile and the orientation of central cD galaxy, NGC 7647. No substructures are detected on the basis of positions and radial velocities of cluster galaxies, indicating that A2589 is a well-relaxed system. The luminosity function of A2589 exhibits a peak at M_R ~ -20 mag and a dip at M_R ~ -19 mag. The low-density outer regions are the preferred habitat of faint galaxies. With the evolutionary population synthesis model, PEGASE, the environmental effect on the star formation properties for 68 spectroscopically confirmed member galaxies is studied. The outlier faint galaxies tend to have longer timescales of star formation, shorter mean stellar ages, and lower metallicities in the interstellar medium, which can be interpreted in the context of a hierarchical cosmological scenario.