Relating basic properties of bright early-type dwarf galaxies to their
  location in Abell 901/902
  We present a study of the population of bright early-type dwarf galaxies in
the multiple-cluster system Abell 901/902. We use data from the STAGES survey
and COMBO-17 to investigate the relation between the color and structural
properties of the dwarfs and their location in the cluster. The definition of
the dwarf sample is based on the central surface brightness and includes
galaxies in the luminosity range -16 >= M_B >~-19 mag. Using a fit to the color
magnitude relation of the dwarfs, our sample is divided into a red and blue
subsample. We find a color-density relation in the projected radial
distribution of the dwarf sample: at the same luminosity dwarfs with redder
colors are located closer to the cluster centers than their bluer counterparts.
Furthermore, the redder dwarfs are on average more compact and rounder than the
bluer dwarfs. These findings are consistent with theoretical expectations
assuming that bright early-type dwarfs are the remnants of transformed
late-type disk galaxies involving processes such as ram pressure stripping and
galaxy harassment. This indicates that a considerable fraction of dwarf
elliptical galaxies in clusters are the results of transformation processes
related to interactions with their host cluster.
