Truncation of galaxy dark matter halos in high density environments

Aims. Our aim is to constrain the properties of dark matter halos inhabiting high density environments, such as is the case in massive galaxy clusters. Methods. We use galaxy-galaxy lensing techniques that utilize a maximum likelihood method to constrain the parameters of the lenses. It has been demonstrated that such a technique provides strong constraints on the parameters that characterize a galaxy halo, as well as on the aperture mass of these halos. In this analysis, we only use weak shear data and do not include strong lensing constraints. Results. We present the results of a study of galaxy-galaxy lensing in a homogeneous sample of massive x-ray luminous clusters at z similar to 0.2. These have been observed in three bands with the CFH12K instrument. We find dark matter halos in these clusters to be compact compared to those inferred around isolated field galaxies of equivalent luminosity at this redshift: the half mass radius is found to be smaller than 50 kpc, with a mean total mass of order 0.2 x 10(12) M-circle dot. This is in good agreement with previous galaxy-galaxy lensing results and with numerical simulations, in particular with the tidal stripping scenario. We thus provide a strong confirmation of tidal truncation from a homogeneous sample of galaxy clusters. Moreover, it is the first time that cluster galaxies are probed successfully using galaxy-galaxy lensing techniques from ground based data.