USING MEMBER GALAXY LUMINOSITIES AS HALO MASS PROXIES OF GALAXY GROUPS

Reliable halo mass estimation for a given galaxy system plays an important role in both cosmology and galaxy formation studies. Here we set out to find a way to improve halo mass estimation of those galaxy systems in which a limited number of brightest member galaxies have been observed. Using four mock galaxy samples constructed from semi-analytical formation models, the subhalo abundance matching method, and the conditional luminosity functions, respectively, we find that the luminosity gap between the brightest and the subsequent brightest member galaxies in a halo (group) can be used to reduce significantly. the scatter in the halo mass estimation based on the luminosity of the brightest galaxy alone. Tests show that these corrections can significantly reduce the scatter in the halo mass estimations by similar to 50% to similar to 70% in massive halos depending on which member galaxies are considered. Compared to the traditional ranking method, we find that this method works better for groups with less than five members, or in observations with a very bright magnitude cutoff.