A SEARCH FOR THE COOLING FLOW ACCRETION POPULATION - OPTICAL AND NEAR-INFRARED IMAGING OF NGC-1275

We present near-infrared and optical images of NGC 1275, the cD galaxy at the center of the Perseus cluster, and a well-known cooling how. A lthough cooling flows are common (perhaps occurring in > 50% of X-ray clusters) and the mass accreted over the lifetime of the cluster simil ar to 10(12) M., attempts to detect the cooled gas at wavelengths othe r than X-rays has met with limited success. In this paper, we measure the optical and near-infrared brightness profiles of NGC 1275, in an a ttempt to detect spatially extended low-mass stars that may have forme d from the cooled gas. To measure the profiles to the required low flu x levels, they have been corrected for overlapping galaxy halos and sc attered light. We find that our profiles are inconsistent with models of low-mass star formation unless the initial mass function has an upp er mass cutoff less than 0.1 M., or the mass of gas accumulated over t he lifetime of the cluster is 1%-10% of that predicted from the X-ray mass accretion rate determined at the present epoch.