The ultra-diffuse galaxy population of the Centaurus cluster from the VEGAS survey

In this work, we present the first study of ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) and low surface brightness galaxies (LSBGs) in the Centaurus cluster. We study UDGs and LSBGs using deep images from the VST Early-type GAlaxy Survey (VEGAS). We apply a semi-automatic detection tool to detect UDGs and LSBGs in the g and r bands. We assess the cluster membership using the colour-magnitude relation for early-type galaxies. We find 213 new LSBGs, where 14 are UDGs. We study the structural parameters of the sample UDGs and LSBGs and their relation with the cluster-centric distance. We find that bluer LSBGs populate larger cluster-centric distances. The trend for LSB galaxies is consistent with a combination of environmental quenching and secular evolution. We conclude that the UDGs in the Centaurus cluster are consistent with being the extreme LSB tail of the size–luminosity distribution of dwarf galaxies.