The Origin of Star Formation Gradients in Rich Galaxy Clusters

By M. Balogh, J. Navarro, S. Morris. 2000

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We examine the origin of clustercentric gradients in the star formation rates and colors of rich cluster galaxies within the context of a simple model where clusters are built through the ongoing accretion of field galaxies. The model assumes that after galaxies enter the cluster their star formation rates decline on a timescale of a few gigayears, the typical gas consumption timescale of disk galaxies in the field. Such behavior might be expected if tides and ram pressure strip off the gaseous envelopes that normally fuel star formation in spirals over a Hubble time. Combining these timescales with mass accretion histories derived from N-body simulations of cluster formation in a ΛCDM universe, we reproduce the systematic differences observed in the color distribution of cluster and field galaxies, as well as the strong suppression of star formation in cluster galaxies and its dependence on clustercentric radius. The simulations also indicate that a significant fraction of galaxies beyond the virial radius of the cluster may have been within the main body of the cluster in the past, a result that explains naturally why star formation in the outskirts of clusters (and as far out as 2 virial radii) is systematically suppressed relative to the field. The agreement with the data beyond the cluster virial radius is also improved if we assume that stripping happens within lower mass systems, before the galaxy is accreted into the main body of the cluster. We conclude that the star formation rates of cluster galaxies depend primarily on the time elapsed since their accretion onto massive virialized systems and that the cessation of star formation may have taken place gradually over a few gigayears.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e810797bca3f2f4d5a5c463dee714b2b9f1212d4

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Citations in the corpus

AN EMPIRICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF EXTENDED COOL GAS AROUND GALAXIES USING Mg ii ABSORPTION FEATURES (2010, background): “…the properties of gaseous halos, such as ram pressure and tidal stripping that could re-distribute cold gas to larger radii (e.g. Gunn & Gott 1972; Balogh et al. 2000; Verdes-Montenegro et al. 2001), the ’group’-galaxy subsample also presents a unique opportunity to study gas kinematics in…”
Ram-pressure stripping of halo gas in disc galaxies: implications for galactic star formation in different environments (2009, background): “One of important suggestions from ⋆ E-mail: bekki@phys.unsw.edu.au these previous works is that stripping of galactic halo gas can cause severe suppression of galactic global star formation in different environments (“strangulation”; Balogh et al. 1999, 2000).”
The Evolution of Population Gradients in Galaxy Clusters: The Butcher-Oemler Effect and Cluster Infall (2000, background): “Estimates of this timescale were also found to be on the order of a few Gyr by Poggianti et al. (1999) and Balogh et al. (2000).”
THE GALAXY CONTENT OF SDSS CLUSTERS AND GROUPS (2007, background): “…low velocity dispersion systems therefore must also play a role in shaping the galaxy population: e.g., galaxy mergers (Toomre & Toomre 1972) and “strangulation,” a cutoff to gas accretion onto galaxy disks by stripping or AGN feedback (Larson et al. 1980; Balogh et al. 2000; Croton et al. 2006).”
LoCuSS: THE SLOW QUENCHING OF STAR FORMATION IN CLUSTER GALAXIES AND THE NEED FOR PRE-PROCESSING (2015, background): “…quenched upon accretion (thick blue diagonal curve) is qualitatively similar in form to the observed trends, and consistent with the data points at ∼1−2r500, suggesting that this is to first order a reasonable assumption, as found previously by Balogh et al. (2000) and Haines et al. (2009).”
Gaia DR2 proper motions of dwarf galaxies within 420 kpc (2018, background): “Such satellites can be considered alongside the backsplash population of satellites that exist beyond the virial radius at z=0 in simulations, but have been within the virial radius at earlier times (Balogh et al. 2000; Gill et al. 2005; Teyssier et al. 2012; Simpson et al. 2018).”
Galaxy evolution in groups and clusters: star formation rates, red sequence fractions and the persistent bimodality (2011, background): “…works found that 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,…”
Galaxy evolution in groups and clusters: satellite star formation histories and quenching time-scales in a hierarchical Universe (2012, methodology): “To constrain 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.…”
PRIMUS: CONSTRAINTS ON STAR FORMATION QUENCHING AND GALAXY MERGING, AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE STELLAR MASS FUNCTION FROM z = 0–1 (2013, background): “…halos (i.e., by groups and clusters) are also susceptible to environmental quenching, such as rampressure stripping (Gunn & Gott 1972), strangulation or starvation (Larson et al. 1980; Balogh et al. 2000), and gravitational harassment (Moore et al. 1998; see Boselli & Gavazzi 2006 for a review).”
WINGS: a WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey. I. Optical imaging (2005, methodology): “…by HST has been complemented with ground-based spectroscopic surveys that have led to a detailed comparison of the spectral and morphological properties (Dressler et al. 1999; Poggianti et al. 1999; Couch et al. 1994, 1998, 2001; Fisher et al. 1998; Lubin et al. 1998; Balogh et al. 1997, 2000).”