Suppressed Star Formation by a Merging Cluster System

Abstract

We examine the effects of an impending cluster merger on galaxies in the large scale structure (LSS) RX J0910 at $z=1.105$. Using multi-wavelength data, including 102 spectral members drawn from the Observations of Redshift Evolution in Large Scale Environments (ORELSE) survey and precise photometric redshifts, we calculate star formation rates and map the specific star formation rate density of the LSS galaxies. These analyses along with an investigation of the color-magnitude properties of LSS galaxies indicate lower levels of star formation activity in the region between the merging clusters relative to the outskirts of the system. We suggest that gravitational tidal forces due to the potential of the merging halos may be the physical mechanism responsible for the observed suppression of star formation in galaxies caught between the merging clusters.

6 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, accepted in MNRAS Letters, v2 corrected a few typographical errors

References in corpus (10)

• The Importance of Satellite Quenching for the Build-Up of the Red Sequence of Present Day Galaxies
• A Comparative Study of Density Field Estimation for Galaxies: New Insights into the Evolution of Galaxies with Environment in COSMOS out to z~3
• Evolution of the Color-Magnitude relation in High-Redshift Clusters: Early-type Galaxies in the Lynx Supercluster at z~1.26
• The Observations of Redshift Evolution in Large Scale Environments (ORELSE) Survey : I. The Survey Design and First Results on Cl 0023+0423 at z = 0.84 and RX J1821.6+6827 at z = 0.82
• The cosmic star formation rate evolution from z=5 to z=0 from the VIMOS VLT Deep Survey
• The Complex Structure of the Cl 1604 Supercluster at z~0.9
• The Environmental Dependence of Properties of Galaxies around the RDCSJ0910+54 Cluster at z=1.1
• Chandra and XMM-Newton Observations of the Bimodal Planck SZ-detected Cluster PLCKG345.40-39.34 (A3716) with High and Low Entropy Subcluster Cores
• X-Ray Emitting Active Galactic Nuclei from z = 0.6-1.3 in the Intermediate and High-Density Environments of the ORELSE Survey
• Star Formation In The Cluster Merger DLSCL J0916.2+2953