KYDISC program : Galaxy Morphology in the Cluster Environment

Galaxy morphology involves complex effects from both secular and non-secular evolution of galaxies. Although it is a final product of galaxy evolution, it gives a clue to the processes that the a galaxy has gone through. Galaxy clusters are the sites where the most massive galaxies are found, and thus the most dramatic merger histories are embedded. Our deep imaging program (${\mu}{\sim}28\;mag\;arcsec^{-2}$), KASI-Yonsei Deep Imaging Survey for Clusters (KYDISC), targets 14 Abell clusters at z = 0.016 - 0.14 using IMACS/Magellan telescope and MegaCam/CFHT to investigate cluster galaxies especially on low surface brightness features related to galaxy interactions. We visually classify galaxy morphology based on criteria related to secular or merger related evolution and find that the morphological mixture of galaxies varies considerably from cluster to cluster. Moreover it depends on the characteristics (e.g. cluster mass) of cluster itself which implies that environmental effects in cluster scale is also an important factor to the evolution of galaxies together with intrinsic (secular) and galaxy merger. Our deep imaging survey for morphological inspection of cluster galaxies with low surface brightness is expected to be a useful basis to understand the nature of cluster galaxies and their internal/external evolutionary path.