The Fate of Dwarf Galaxies in Clusters and the Origin of Intracluster
  Stars
  This thesis presents a review of related important concepts in cosmology
followed by details of the author's role in a research project on the origin of
intracluster light. The author's role in the development of the simulations
varied from searching parameters in the literature, through writing and
modifying code in IDL, FORTRAN, and UNIX to carrying out hundreds of
simulations using the particle-particle algorithm described in this thesis, as
well as partaking in joint analysis of the simulation results. Part of this
work in the isolated cluster simulations has been submitted for publication
(Barai, Brito & Martel 2009). The main results of the simulations described in
this thesis are: 1) destruction of dwarf galaxies by mergers dominates
destruction by tides, and 2) destruction of galaxies by tides is sufficient to
explain the observed intracluster light. These results support the accepted
explanation for the origin of the intracluster light. In an ongoing, second
stage of the simulation, which extends the isolated cluster results to a
cosmologically significant region of the Universe, the author similarly assists
in the implementation of a particle-particle/particle-mesh simulation and the
joint analysis of the results to-date. The results are as per the Schechter
luminosity function, and suggest the approach used is valid and the results
obtained robust.
