The Origin of Dwarf Ellipticals in the Virgo Cluster

By A. Boselli, S. Boissier, L. Cortese, G. Gavazzi. 2008

180 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the evolution of dwarf (LH < 109.6 LH☉) star-forming and quiescent galaxies in the Virgo Cluster by comparing their UV to radio centimetric properties to the predictions of multizone chemospectrophotometric models of galaxy evolution especially tuned to take into account the perturbations induced by the interaction with the cluster intergalactic medium. Our models simulate one or multiple ram pressure stripping events and galaxy starvation. Models predict that all star-forming dwarf galaxies entering the cluster for the first time loose most, if not all, of their atomic gas content, quenching on short timescales (≤150 Myr) their activity of star formation. These dwarf galaxies soon become red and quiescent, gas metal-rich objects with spectrophotometric and structural properties similar to those of dwarf ellipticals. Young, low-luminosity, high surface brightness star-forming galaxies such as late-type spirals and BCDs are probably the progenitors of relatively massive dwarf ellipticals, while it is likely that low surface brightness Magellanic irregulars evolve into very low surface brightness quiescent objects hardly detectable in ground-based imaging surveys. The small number of dwarf galaxies with physical properties intermediate between those of star-forming and quiescent systems is consistent with a rapid (<1 Gyr) transitional phase between the two dwarf galaxy populations. These results, combined with statistical considerations, are consistent with the idea that most of the dwarf ellipticals dominating the faint end of the Virgo luminosity function were initially star-forming systems, accreted by the cluster and stripped of their gas by one or subsequent ram pressure stripping events.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0e139715e3fe27573b49cb30564d89d7b75599f1

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. M. Cappellari
2. P. Hopkins
3. L. Hernquist
4. T. Naab
5. R. Somerville
6. Thomas J. Cox
7. M. Sarzi
8. C. Conroy

In Instrumentation

1. M. Cappellari
2. P. Hopkins
3. L. Hernquist
4. T. Naab
5. Thomas J. Cox
6. R. Somerville
7. M. Sarzi
8. J. Kormendy

Citations in the corpus

• The applicability of far-infrared fine-structure lines as star formation rate tracers over wide ranges of metallicities and galaxy types (2014, methodology): “We classify galaxies as dwarfs if the criterion LH < 109.6 LH, is fulfilled, similar to the selection procedure applied in Boselli et al. (2008).”
• The dust scaling relations of the Herschel Reference Survey (2012, background): “…galaxies appear mainly to extend the relation already seen for Hi-normal galaxies to redder colours, confirming that the gas removal and the reddening of the colours (i.e., quenching of the star formation) are related (Boselli & Gavazzi 2006; Boselli et al. 2008; Cortese & Hughes 2009).”
• MUSE sneaks a peek at extreme ram-pressure stripping events - I. A kinematic study of the archetypal galaxy ESO137-001 (2014, background): “Indeed, ram-pressure stripping produces only subtle transformations in the stellar disks (e.g. Smith et al. 2012b), which largely retain memory of the original morphology and kinematics (e.g. Boselli et al. 2008; Toloba et al. 2011).”
• The STAGES view of red spirals and dusty red galaxies: Mass-dependent quenching of star formation in cluster infall (2008, background): “…to α = −1.6 for the outer Virgo regions and the low-density galaxy field following Sabatini et al. (2003) who claim that inclusion of LSB galaxies makes a critical difference at lowest luminosities; these could be stripped and faded descendants of small-bulge spirals, see Boselli et al. (2008).”
• ELVIS: Exploring the Local Volume in Simulations (2013, background): “If so, then in principle, environmental effects such as ram pressure, harassment, or strangulation could have quenched the galaxy it hosts (Kawata & Mulchaey 2008; Boselli et al. 2008; Grcevich & Putman 2009; Woo et al. 2013; Phillips et al. 2014).”
• A REVISED PARALLEL-SEQUENCE MORPHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF GALAXIES: STRUCTURE AND FORMATION OF S0 AND SPHEROIDAL GALAXIES (2011, background): “…observations and theoretical developments both suggest that ram-pressure stripping is more effective than we have thought (Mori & Burkert 2000; Quilis et al. 2000; Grebel et al. 2003; Roediger & Hensler 2005; Tonnesen et al. 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010; Boselli et al. 2008; van Gorkom & Kenney 2011).”
• The ATLAS3D project – XX. Mass–size and mass–σ distributions of early-type galaxies: bulge fraction drives kinematics, mass-to-light ratio, molecular gas fraction and stellar initial mass function (2012, background): “E dichotomy (Kormendy 1985; de Rijcke et al. 2005; Janz & Lisker 2008; Kormendy et al. 2009) and the ones of a continuity (Graham & Guzmán 2003; Gavazzi et al. 2005; Côté et al. 2006; Ferrarese et al. 2006; Boselli et al. 2008; Graham & Worley 2008; Janz & Lisker 2009; Forbes et al. 2011).”
• The effect of the environment on the Hi scaling relations (2011, methodology): “Boselli et al. (2008) have recently used multi-zone chemical and spectrophotometric models to constrain the evolutionary history of dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster and to discriminate between the ram-pressure and starvation scenarios.”
• The green valley is a red herring: Galaxy Zoo reveals two evolutionary pathways towards quenching of star formation in early-and late-type galaxies (2014, background): “We note that dwarf ellipticals are not in our sample and their quenching pathways may be very different (e.g. Boselli et al. 2008).”