The Evolution of Population Gradients in Galaxy Clusters: The Butcher-Oemler Effect and Cluster Infall

By E. Ellingson, Huan Lin, H. Yee, R. Carlberg. 2000

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We present photometric and spectroscopic measurements of the galaxy populations in clusters from the CNOC1 sample of rich, X-ray-luminous clusters at 0.18 < z < 0.55. A classical measure of the galaxy blue fraction for spectroscopically confirmed cluster members shows a significant Butcher-Oemler effect for the sample, but only when radii larger than 0.5r200 are considered. We perform a principal component analysis of galaxy spectra to divide the total cluster light into contributions from stellar populations of different ages. Composite radial distributions of different stellar populations show strong gradients as a function of clustercentric radius. The composite population is dominated by evolved populations in the core, and gradually changes at radii greater than the virial radius to one which is similar to coeval field galaxies. We do not see evidence at any radius within the clusters for an excess of star formation over that seen in the coeval field. Within this redshift range, significant evolution in the fractional population gradient is seen. Both low- and high-redshift clusters have similar populations in the cluster cores, but higher redshift clusters have steeper gradients and more star-forming galaxies at radii outside of the core region—in effect, a restatement of the Butcher-Oemler effect. Luminosity density profiles are consistent with a scenario where this phenomenon is due to a decline over time in the infall rate of field galaxies into clusters. Depending on how long galaxies reside in clusters before their star formation rates are diminished, this suggests a decrease in the infall into clusters of a factor of ~3 between z > 0.8 and z ~ 0.5. We also discuss alternative scenarios for the evolution of cluster populations.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/afbee6c1fd8252a52814cf70341a28195ae03cdd

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Citations in the corpus

Galaxy evolution in groups and clusters: satellite star formation histories and quenching time-scales in a hierarchical Universe (2012, background): “…satellite quenching processes, many works have examined the SFRs/colors of satellites in groups/clusters in detail at z ≈ 0 (e.g., Balogh et al. 2000; Ellingson et al. 2001; De Propris et al. 2004; Weinmann et al. 2006; Blanton & Berlind 2007; Kimm et al. 2009; van den Bosch et al. 2008; Hansen et…”
REVERSAL OF FORTUNE: CONFIRMATION OF AN INCREASING STAR FORMATION–DENSITY RELATION IN A CLUSTER AT z = 1.62 (2010, background): “A plethora of studies utilizing multiwavelength tracers of activity have shown that star formation universally decreases with increasing galaxy density at z < 1 (e.g. Hashimoto et al. 1998; Ellingson et al. 2001; Gómez et al. 2003; Patel et al. 2009).”
CAIRNS: The Cluster and Infall Region Nearby Survey. I. Redshifts and Mass Profiles (2003, background): “This conclusion is consistent with previous investigations of galaxies in and near clusters (Balogh et al. 1997; Diaferio et al. 2001; Ellingson et al. 2001; Lewis et al. 2002; Gómez et al. 2003; Treu et al. 2003; Balogh et al. 2004; Gray et al. 2004; Tanaka et al. 2004), and the emission…”
The Build-up of the Colour-Magnitude Relation (2005, background): “O effect seems to be confirmed by later studies (Couch & Sharples 1987; Rakos & Schombert 1995; Ellingson et al. 2001; Kodama & Bower 2001b; Margoniner et al. 2001; Nakata et al. 2001; Fairley et al. 2002; Goto et al. 2003b; Tran et al. 2005; but see also Fairley et al. 2002; Andreon, Lobo & Iovino…”
LoCuSS: THE SLOW QUENCHING OF STAR FORMATION IN CLUSTER GALAXIES AND THE NEED FOR PRE-PROCESSING (2015, result): “A steady systematic increase in fSF with cluster-centric radius was observed out to ∼r200, similar to those found previously (Ellingson et al. 2001; Lewis et al. 2002; Weinmann et al. 2006).”
A Comparison of the Galaxy Populations in the Coma and Distant Clusters: The Evolution of k+a Galaxies and the Role of the Intracluster Medium (2003, methodology): “The evolution of galaxies in clusters has been investigated through observations of distant clusters using galaxy colors (Butcher & Oemler 1984; Ellingson et al. 2001; Kodama & Bower 2001; Stanford, Eisenhardt, & Dickinson 1998; Kodama et al. 1998), morphologies (Dressler et al. 1997; Fasano et al.…”
Galaxy ecology: groups and low-density environments in the SDSS and 2dFGRS (2003, background): “It is possible that including the effects of infall (Ellingson et al. 2001) and projection effects (Diaferio et al. 2001), in addition to a slow-decay model (Balogh et al. 2000) conspire to keep the shape of the W0(Hα) distribution constant.”
THE GALAXY CONTENT OF SDSS CLUSTERS AND GROUPS (2007, background): “…in clusters over a wide range of masses by studies of the blue fraction, or its converse, the red fraction (Rakos & Schombert 1995; Margoniner & de Carvalho 2000; Ellingson et al. 2001; Kodama & Bower 2001; Margoniner et al. 2001; De Propris et al. 2004; Mart́ınez et al. 2006; Gerke et al. 2007).”
The Evolution of the Star Formation Activity in Galaxies and Its Dependence on Environment (2005, background): “…Biviano et al. 1997, Zabludoff & Mulchaey 1998, Margoniner et al. 2001, Goto et al. 2003) or absence (Smail et al. 1998, Andreon & Ettori 1999, Ellingson et al. 2001, Fairley et al. 2002, De Propris et al. 2004, Goto 2005, Wilman et al. 2005a) of a relation between galaxy properties and…”
The accretion of galaxies into groups and clusters (2009, background): “Compare this evolution with that observed in the red fraction of cluster galaxies, which indicate an evolution of ∼25 per cent over a similar redshift range, from 0.9 at z = 0.2 to 0.65 at z = 0.5 (Ellingson et al. 2001).”
Pre-Processing of Galaxies before Entering a Cluster (2003, background): “This star-formation activity is often called the Butcher–Oemler effect, and subsequent studies have confirmed this trend (Couch, Sharples 1987; Rakos, Schombert 1995; Lubin 1996; Margoniner, de Carvalho 2000; Ellingson et al. 2001; Goto et al. 2003a).”
Galaxy evolution in groups and clusters: star formation rates, red sequence fractions and the persistent bimodality (2011, background): “…satellites are more likely to be red (De Propris et al. 2004; Blanton & Berlind 2007; Hansen et al. 2009) and have lower SFRs (Balogh et al. 2000; Ellingson et al. 2001; Weinmann et al. 2006; von der Linden et al. 2010; Prescott et al. 2011) towards group/cluster centre, including weak trends…”
CIRS: Cluster Infall Regions in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. Infall Patterns and Mass Profiles (2006, background): “CAIRNS also provides an important zero-redshift benchmark for comparison with more distant systems (e.g., Ellingson et al. 2001).”