No Arabic abstract
Ram pressure stripping of galaxies in clusters can yield gas deficient disks. Previous numerical simulations based on various approaches suggested that, except for near edge-on disk orientations, the amount of stripping depends very little on the inclination angle. Following our previous study of face-on stripping, we extend the set of parameters with the disk tilt angle and explore in detail the effects of the ram pressure on the interstellar content (ISM) of tilted galaxies that orbit in various environments of clusters, with compact or extended distributions of the intra-cluster medium (ICM). We further study how results of numerical simulations could be estimated analytically. A grid of numerical simulations with varying parameters is produced using the tree/SPH code GADGET with a modified method for calculating the ISM-ICM interaction. These SPH calculations extend the set of existing results obtained from different codes using various numerical techniques. The simulations confirm the general trend of less stripping at orientations close to edge-on. The dependence on the disk tilt angle is more pronounced for compact ICM distributions, however it almost vanishes for strong ram pressure pulses. Although various hydrodynamical effects are present in the ISM-ICM interaction, the main quantitative stripping results appear to be roughly consistent with a simple scenario of momentum transfer from the encountered ICM. This behavior can also be found in previous simulations. To reproduce the numerical results we propose a fitting formula depending on the disk tilt angle and on the column density of the encountered ICM. Such a dependence is superior to that on the peak ram pressure used in previous simple estimates.
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.
(Abridged) We perform high resolution 2D hydrodynamical simulations of face-on ram pressure stripping (RPS) of disk galaxies to compile a comprehensive parameter study varying galaxy properties (mass, vertical structure of the gas disk) and covering a large range of ICM conditions, reaching from high density environments like in cluster centres to low density environments typical for cluster outskirts or groups. We find that the ICM-ISM interaction proceeds in three phases: firstly the instantaneous stripping phase, secondly the dynamic intermediate phase, thirdly the quasi-stable continuous viscous stripping phase. The stripping efficiency depends slightly on the Mach number of the flow, however, the main parameter is the ram pressure. The stripping efficiency does not depend on the vertical structure and thickness of the gas disk. We discuss uncertainties in the classic estimate of the stripping radius of citet{gunn72}, and adapt the estimate used by cite{mori00} for spherical galaxies, (comparison of central pressure with ram pressure). We find that the latter estimate predicts the radius and mass of the gas disk remaining at the end of the second phase very well, and better than the citet{gunn72} criterion. From our simulations we conclude that gas disks of galaxies in high density environments are heavily truncated or even completely stripped, but also the gas disks of galaxies in low density environments are disturbed by the flow and back-falling material, so that they should also be pre-processed.
Ram-pressure stripping (RPS) is a well observed phenomenon of massive spiral galaxies passing through the hot intra-cluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters. For dwarf galaxies (DGs) within a cluster, the transformation from gaseous to gas-poor systems by RPS is not easily observed and must happen in the outskirts of clusters. In a few objects in close by galaxy clusters and the field, RPS has been observed. Since cluster early-type DGs also show a large variety of internal structures (unexpected central gas reservoirs, blue stellar cores, composite radial stellar profiles), we aim in this study to investigate how ram pressure (RP) affects the interstellar gas content and therefore the star-formation (SF) activity. Using a series of numerical simulations, we quantify the dependence of the stripped-off gas on the velocity of the infalling DGs and on the ambient ICM density. We demonstrated that SF can be either suppressed or triggered by RP depending on the ICM density and the DGs mass. Under some conditions, RP can compress the gas, so that it is unexpectedly retained in the central DG region and forms stars. When gas clouds are still bound against stripping but lifted from a thin disk and fall back, their new stars form an ellipsoidal (young) stellar population already with a larger velocity dispersion without the necessity of harassment. Most spectacularly, star clusters can form downstream in stripped-off massive gas clouds in the case of strong RP. We compare our results to observations.
We use 3-dimensional SPH/N-BODY simulations to study ram pressure stripping of gas from spiral galaxies orbiting in clusters. We find that the analytic expectation of Gunn & Gott (1972) relating the gravitational restoring force provided by the disk to the ram pressure force, provides a good approximation to the radius that gas will be stripped from a galaxy. However, at small radii it is also important to consider the potential provided by the bulge component. A spiral galaxy passing through the core of a rich cluster such as Coma, will have its gaseous disk truncated to $sim 4$ kpc, thus losing $sim 80%$ of its diffuse gas mass. The timescale for this to occur is a fraction of a crossing time $sim 10^7$ years. Galaxies orbiting within poorer clusters, or inclined to the direction of motion through the intra-cluster medium will lose significantly less gas. We conclude that ram-pressure alone is insufficient to account for the rapid and widespread truncation of star-formation observed in cluster galaxies, or the morphological transformation of Sabs to S0s that is necessary to explain the Butcher-Oemler effect.
We report the detection of H$alpha$ trails behind three new intermediate-mass irregular galaxies in the NW outskirts of the nearby cluster of galaxies Abell 1656 (Coma). Hints that these galaxies possess an extended component were found in earlier, deeper H$alpha$ observations carried out with the Subaru telescope. However the lack of a simultaneous $r$-band exposure, together with the presence of strong stellar ghosts in the Subaru images, prevented us from quantifying the detections. We therefore devoted one full night of H$alpha$ observation to each of the three galaxies using the San Pedro Martir 2.1m telescope. One-sided tails of H$alpha$ emission of 10-20 kpc projected size were detected, suggesting an ongoing ram pressure stripping event. We added these 3 new sources of extended ionized gas (EIG) added to the 12 found by Yagi et al. (2010), NGC 4848 (Fossati et al. 2012), and NGC 4921 whose ram pressure stripping is certified by HI asymmetry. This brings the number sources with H$alpha$ trails to 17 gaseous tails out of 27 (63 %) late-type galaxies (LTG) galaxies members of the Coma cluster with direct evidence of ram pressure stripping. The 27 LTG galaxies, among these the 17 with extended H$alpha$ tails, have kinematic properties that are different from the rest of the early-type galaxy (ETG) population of the c ore of the Coma cluster, as they deviate in the phase-space diagram $Delta$V/$sigma$ versus $r/R_{200}$.