Ram pressure stripping in clusters: gravity can bind the ISM but not the CGM
Abstract
We explore the survival of a galaxy's circumgalactic medium (CGM) as it experiences ram pressure stripping (RPS) moving through the intracluster medium (ICM). For a satellite galaxy, the CGM is often assumed to be entirely stripped/evaporated, an assumption that may not always be justified. We carry out 3D-hydrodynamic simulations of the interstellar and circumgalactic media (ISM + CGM) of a galaxy like JO201 moving through the ICM. The CGM can survive long at cluster outskirts ($\gtrsim 2 \rm \ Gyr$) but at smaller clustercentric distances, 90 per cent of the CGM mass is lost within ~500 Myr. The gravitational restoring force on the CGM is mostly negligible and the CGM-ICM interaction is analogous to 'cloud-wind interaction'. The CGM stripping time-scale does not depend on the ram pressure but on the CGM to ICM density contrast χ. Two distinct regimes emerge for CGM stripping: the χ > 1 regime, which is the well-known 'cloud crushing' problem, and the χ < 1 regime, which we refer to as the (relatively unexplored) 'bubble drag' problem. The first pericentric passage near the cluster core can rapidly - over a crossing time tdrag ~ R/vrel - strip the CGM in the bubble drag regime. The ISM stripping criterion unlike the CGM criterion, still depends on the ram pressure $\rho _{\rm ICM} v_{\rm rel}^2$. The stripped tails of satellites contain contributions from both the disc and the CGM. The X-ray plume in M89 in the Virgo cluster and a lack of it in the nearby M90 might be attributed to their orbital histories. M90 has likely undergone stripping in the bubble drag regime due to a pericentric passage close to the cluster centre.
- Publication:
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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- July 2024
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2404.02035
- Bibcode:
- 2024MNRAS.531.3445G
- Keywords:
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- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- 23 pages, 15 figures