The effect of ram pressure on the molecular gas of galaxies: three case studies in the Virgo cluster

Lee, Bumhyun; Chung, Aeree; Tonnesen, Stephanie; Kenney, Jeffrey D. P.; Wong, O. I.; Vollmer, B.; Petitpas, G.; Crowl, Hugh H.; Gorkom, Jacqueline van

doi:10.1093/mnras/stw3162

Cited by 94 publications

(144 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Recently Lee et al (2017) presented high-resolution CO maps of NGC 4330 revealing an asymmetric CO morphology which closely coincides with the location of the Hα emission. However, the UV emission is more extended than the molecular gas distribution, which suggests a recent and rapid quenching of the star formation activity occurred during the stripping of all the gaseous components from the outer regions of NGC4330.…”

Section: Ngc 4330mentioning

confidence: 63%

“…These observations have revealed a low surface brightness, extended, one-sided tail of ionised gas being removed from the galaxy disc. This feature, combined with the truncated Hα, HI, and CO morphologies compared to the extent of the stellar disc, unambiguously points to ram pressure stripping as the mechanism responsible for the quenching of the star formation activity in NGC 4330 (Chung et al 2007;Abramson et al 2011;Lee et al 2017). That the quenching process is still ongoing, coupled with the edge-on morphology, made this galaxy an ideal candidate for studies of the quenching timescale as a function of the galactocentric radius.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

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A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE)

Fossati

Mendel

Boselli

et al. 2018

A&A

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151

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The Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE) is a blind narrow-band Hα+ [NII] imaging survey carried out with MegaCam at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. During pilot observations taken in the spring of 2016 we observed NGC 4330, an intermediate mass (M * 10 9.8 M ) edge-on star forming spiral currently falling into the core of the Virgo cluster. While previous Hα observations showed a clumpy complex of ionised gas knots outside the galaxy disc, new deep observations revealed a low surface brightness ∼ 10 kpc tail exhibiting a peculiar filamentary structure. The filaments are remarkably parallel to one another and clearly indicate the direction of motion of the galaxy in the Virgo potential. Motivated by the detection of these features which indicate ongoing gas stripping, we collected literature photometry in 15 bands from the far-UV to the far-IR and deep optical long-slit spectroscopy using the FORS2 instrument at the ESO Very Large Telescope. Using a newly developed Monte Carlo code that jointly fits spectroscopy and photometry, we reconstructed the star formation histories in apertures along the major axis of the galaxy. Our results have been validated against the output of CIGALE, a fitting code which has been previously used for similar studies. We found a clear outside-in gradient with radius of the time when the quenching event started: the outermost radii were stripped ∼ 500 Myr ago, while the stripping reached the inner 5 kpc from the centre in the last 100 Myr. Regions at even smaller radii are currently still forming stars fueled by the presence of HI and H 2 gas. When compared to statistical studies of the quenching timescales in the local Universe we find that ram pressure stripping of the cold gas is an effective mechanism to reduce the transformation times for galaxies falling into massive clusters. Future systematic studies of all the active galaxies observed by VESTIGE in the Virgo cluster will extend these results to a robust statistical framework.

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Section: Ngc 4330mentioning

confidence: 63%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE)

Fossati

Mendel

Boselli

et al. 2018

A&A

Self Cite

151

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“…Molecular gas, which exists almost exclusively at the centres of these galaxies' discs, is almost unaffected by this process. Recent CO observations of 3 satellite galaxies in the Virgo cluster by Lee et al (2017) show that, while the morphology of molecular gas can be disturbed by ram pressure, there is no evidence that ram-pressure stripping affects the total molecular gas content. For Dark Sage, only low-m * galaxies in high-mass haloes have their molecular gas and star formation activity directly impacted by ram-pressure stripping (Fig.…”

Section: Caveats Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical drivers of galaxies’ cold-gas content: exploring environmental and evolutionary effects with Dark Sage

Stevens

Brown

2017

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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We combine the latest spectrally stacked data of 21-cm emission from the ALFALFA survey with an updated version of the Dark Sage semi-analytic model to investigate the relative contributions of secular and environmental astrophysical processes on shaping the H i fractions and quiescence of galaxies in the local Universe. We calibrate the model to match the observed mean H i fraction of all galaxies as a function of stellar mass. Without consideration of stellar feedback, disc instabilities, and active galactic nuclei, we show how the slope and normalisation of this relation would change significantly. We find Dark Sage can reproduce the relative impact that halo mass is observed to have on satellites' H i fractions and quiescent fraction. However, the model satellites are systematically gas-poor. We discuss how this could be affected by satellite-central cross-contamination from the group-finding algorithm applied to the observed galaxies, but that it is not the full story. From our results, we suggest the anti-correlation between satellites' H i fractions and host halo mass, seen at fixed stellar mass and fixed specific star formation rate, can be attributed almost entirely to ram-pressure stripping of cold gas. Meanwhile, stripping of hot gas from around the satellites drives the correlation of quiescent fraction with halo mass at fixed stellar mass. Further detail in the modelling of galaxy discs' centres is required to solidify this result, however. We contextualise our results with those from other semi-analytic models and hydrodynamic simulations.

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“…On the other hand, some studies suggest that ram pressure in rich cluster environments compresses the gas in galaxies, and can enhance the star formation in the cluster member galaxies (e.g. Ebeling et al 2014;Lee et al 2017). In these ways, the effect of rich cluster environments on molecular gas content in galaxies is still under debate, but it is possible that galaxies in extremely rich environments could deviate from the ∆MS-f H2 (or ∆MS-SFE) relations.…”

Section: Comparison With Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mok et al (2016Mok et al ( , 2017 propose that the cluster environment could decrease the efficiency of star formation through molecular gas heating or turbulence at the same time, while some other studies suggest an increased star formation efficiency due to the gas compression in cluster galaxies (e.g. Ebeling et al 2014;Lee et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Universal Correlation between Star Formation Activity and Molecular Gas Properties Across Environments

Koyama¹,

Koyama²,

Yamashita³

et al. 2017

ApJ

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We present the molecular gas mass fraction (f H2 ) and star-formation efficiency (SFE) of local galaxies on the basis of our new CO(J = 1 − 0) observations with the Nobeyama 45m radio telescope, combined with the COLDGASS galaxy catalog, as a function of galaxy environment defined as the local number density of galaxies measured with SDSS DR7 spectroscopic data. Our sample covers a wide range in the stellar mass and SFR, and covers wide environmental range over two orders of magnitude. This allows us to conduct the first, systematic study of environmental dependence of molecular gas properties in galaxies from the lowest-to the highest-density environments in the local universe. We confirm that both f H2 and SFE have strong positive correlations with the SFR offset from the star-forming main sequence (∆MS), and most importantly, we find that these correlations are universal across all environments. Our result demonstrates that star-formation activity within individual galaxies is primarily controlled by their molecular gas content, regardless of their global environment. Therefore, we claim that one always needs to be careful about the ∆MS distribution of the sample when investigating the environmental effects on the H 2 gas content in galaxies.

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The effect of ram pressure on the molecular gas of galaxies: three case studies in the Virgo cluster

Cited by 94 publications

References 71 publications

A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE)

A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE)

Physical drivers of galaxies’ cold-gas content: exploring environmental and evolutionary effects with Dark Sage

A Universal Correlation between Star Formation Activity and Molecular Gas Properties Across Environments

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