Gas depletion in cluster galaxies depends strongly on their internal structure
Abstract
We analyse galaxies in 300 nearby groups and clusters identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using a photometric gas mass indicator that is useful for estimating the degree to which the interstellar medium of a cluster galaxy has been depleted. We study the radial dependence of inferred gas mass fractions for galaxies of different stellar masses and stellar surface densities. At fixed cluster-centric distance and at fixed stellar mass, lower density galaxies are more strongly depleted of their gas than higher density galaxies. An analysis of depletion trends in the two-dimensional plane of stellar mass M* and stellar mass surface density μ* reveals that gas depletion at fixed cluster-centric radius is much more sensitive to the density of a galaxy than to its mass. We suggest that low-density galaxies are more easily depleted of their gas, because they are more easily affected by ram-pressure and/or tidal forces. We also look at the dependence of our gas fraction/radius relations on the velocity dispersion of the cluster, finding no clear systematic trend.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- March 2013
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/sts490
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1207.3924
- Bibcode:
- 2013MNRAS.429.2191Z
- Keywords:
-
- galaxies: clusters: general;
- galaxies: distances and redshifts;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies;
- Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 9 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS