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Register a new userGalaxy Evolution in Hickson Compact Groups: The Role of Ram Pressure Stripping and Strangulation
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Jesper Rasmussen
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Galaxies in compact groups tend to be deficient in neutral hydrogen compared to isolated galaxies of similar optical properties. In order to investigate the role played by a hot intragroup medium (IGM) for the removal and destruction of HI in these systems, we have performed a Chandra and XMM-Newton study of eight of the most HI deficient Hickson compact groups. Diffuse X-ray emission associated with an IGM is detected in four of the groups, suggesting that galaxy-IGM interactions are not the dominant mechanism driving cold gas out of the group members. No clear evidence is seen for any of the members being currently stripped of any hot gas, nor for galaxies to show enhanced nuclear X-ray activity in the X-ray bright or most HI deficient groups. Combining the inferred IGM distributions with analytical models of representative disc galaxies orbiting within each group, we estimate the HI mass loss due to ram pressure and viscous stripping. While these processes are generally insufficient to explain observed HI deficiencies, they could still be important for HI removal in the X-ray bright groups, potentially removing more than half of the ISM in the X-ray bright HCG 97. Ram pressure may also have facilitated strangulation through the removal of galactic coronal gas. In X-ray undetected groups, tidal interactions could be playing a prominent role, but it remains an open question whether they can fully account for the observed HI deficiencies.
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Galaxy clusters have long been theorised to quench the star-formation of their members. This study uses integral-field unit observations from the $K$-band Multi-Object Spectrograph (KMOS) - Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) survey (K-CLASH) to search for evidence of quenching in massive galaxy clusters at redshifts $0.3<z<0.6$. We first construct mass-matched samples of exclusively star-forming cluster and field galaxies, then investigate the spatial extent of their H$alpha$ emission and study their interstellar medium conditions using emission line ratios. The average ratio of H$alpha$ half-light radius to optical half-light radius ($r_{rm{e},rm{H}alpha}/r_{rm{e},R_c}$) for all galaxies is $1.14pm0.06$, showing that star formation is taking place throughout stellar discs at these redshifts. However, on average, cluster galaxies have a smaller $r_{rm{e},rm{H}alpha}/r_{rm{e},R_c}$ ratio than field galaxies: $langle r_{rm{e},rm{H}alpha}/r_{rm{e},R_c}rangle = 0.96pm0.09$ compared to $1.22pm0.08$ (smaller at a 98% credibility level). These values are uncorrected for the wavelength difference between H$alpha$ emission and $R_c$-band stellar light, but implementing such a correction only reinforces our results. We also show that whilst the cluster and field samples follow indistinguishable mass-metallicity (MZ) relations, the residuals around the MZ relation of cluster members correlate with cluster-centric distance; galaxies residing closer to the cluster centre tend to have enhanced metallicities (significant at the 2.6$sigma$ level). Finally, in contrast to previous studies, we find no significant differences in electron number density between the cluster and field galaxies. We use simple chemical evolution models to conclude that the effects of disc strangulation and ram-pressure stripping can quantitatively explain our observations.
While galaxies move through the intracluster medium of their host cluster, they experience a ram pressure which removes at least a significant part of their interstellar medium. This ram pressure stripping appears to be especially important for spiral galaxies: this scenario is a good candidate to explain the differences observed between cluster spirals in the nearby universe and their field counterparts. Thus, ram pressure stripping of disk galaxies in clusters has been studied intensively during the last decade. I review advances made in this area, concentrating on theoretical work, but continuously comparing to observations.
We use a cosmological chemodynamical simulation to study how the group environment impacts the star formation properties of disk galaxies. The simulated group has a total mass of M~8x10^12 Msun and a total X-ray luminosity of L_X~10^41 erg s^-1. Our simulation suggests that ram pressure is not sufficient in this group to remove the cold disk gas from a V_rot~150 km s^-1 galaxy. However, the majority of the hot gas in the galaxy is stripped over a timescale of approximately 1 Gyr. Since the cooling of the hot gas component provides a source for new cold gas, the stripping of the hot component effectively cuts off the supply of cold gas. This in turn leads to a quenching of star formation. The galaxy maintains the disk component after the cold gas is consumed, which may lead to a galaxy similar to an S0. Our self-consistent simulation suggests that this strangulation mechanism works even in low mass groups, providing an explanation for the lower star formation rates in group galaxies relative to galaxies in the field.
By creating and analyzing the two dimensional gas temperature and abundance maps of the RGH 80 compact galaxy group with the high-quality Chandra data, we detect a high-abundance ($simeq 0.7$ $Z_odot$) arc, where the metal abundance is significantly higher than the surrounding regions by $simeq 0.3$ Z_odot$. This structure shows tight spatial correlations with the member galaxy PGC 046529, as well as with the arm-like feature identified on the X-ray image in the previous work of Randall et al. (2009). Since no apparent signature of AGN activity is found associated with PGC 046529 in multi-band observations, and the gas temperature, metallicity, and mass of the high-abundance arc resemble those of the ISM of typical early-type galaxies, we conclude that this high-abundance structure is the remnant of the ISM of PGC 046529, which was stripped out of the galaxy by ram pressure stripping due to the motion of PGC 046529 in RGH 80. This novel case shows that ram pressure stripping can work efficiently in the metal enrichment process in galaxy groups, as it can in galaxy clusters.
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