Alignment of galaxies in galaxy clusters

Residual systematic effects are much smaller than the statistical uncertainties. We detect no galaxy alignment of any kind out to at least 3r_200_. The signal is consistent with zero for both blue and red galaxies, bright and faint ones, and also for subsamples of clusters based on redshift, dynamical mass, and dynamical state.

These conclusions are unchanged if we expand the sample with bright cluster members from the red sequence. We augment our constraints with those from the literature to estimate the importance of the intrinsic alignments of satellites compared to those of central galaxies, for which the alignments are described by the linear alignment model. Comparison of the alignment signals to the expected uncertainties of current surveys such as the Kilo-Degree Survey suggests that the linear alignment model is an adequate treatment of intrinsic alignments, but it is not clear whether this will be the case for larger surveys.