Optical Colors of Intracluster Light in the Virgo Cluster Core
  We continue our deep optical imaging survey of the Virgo cluster using the
CWRU Burrell Schmidt telescope by presenting B-band surface photometry of the
core of the Virgo cluster in order to study the cluster's intracluster light
(ICL). We find ICL features down to mu_b ~ 29 mag sq. arcsec, confirming the
results of Mihos et al. (2005), who saw a vast web of low-surface brightness
streams, arcs, plumes, and diffuse light in the Virgo cluster core using V-band
imaging. By combining these two data sets, we are able to measure the optical
colors of many of the cluster's low-surface brightness features. While much of
our imaging area is contaminated by galactic cirrus, the cluster core near the
cD galaxy, M87, is unobscured. We trace the color profile of M87 out to over
2000 arcsec, and find a blueing trend with radius, continuing out to the
largest radii. Moreover, we have measured the colors of several ICL features
which extend beyond M87's outermost reaches and find that they have similar
colors to the M87's halo itself, B-V ~ 0.8. The common colors of these features
suggests that the extended outer envelopes of cD galaxies, such as M87, may be
formed from similar streams, created by tidal interactions within the cluster,
that have since dissolved into a smooth background in the cluster potential.
