Program: GN-2011B-Q-107

This program is to obtain deep long slit spectra along the major axes of three of the brightest galaxies in the universe, located in the centers of fossil groups. Using the GMOS long-slit at a resolution of 3.4 A in the optical, we aim to examine the kinematics and stellar populations of the BCGs of the fossils and compare them to the BCGs of "normal" systems. This study is timely, as we have recently demonstrated that fossils have mass-to-light ratios several times higher than those of systems of the same mass. This new result indicates the need for a reformulation of the scenario in which fossil groups BCGs are the end-product of canibalism, while leaving open the possibility that they evolved differently from BCGs in normal clusters and groups. An excellent control sample is present in the literature (Brough et al., 2007), which studies three BCGs in groups and three in normal clusters, observed with the same Gemini setup that we propose to use. We therefore intend to compare kinematics and stellar populations of BCGs in fossils with those in normal systems in an attempt to shed light on the mechanisms generatring the much lower M/L ratios observed in fossils.