Survival of Massive Star-forming Galaxies in Cluster Cores Drives Gas-Phase Metallicity Gradients : The Effects of Ram Pressure Stripping
arXiv:1705.08452 · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aa74ea
Abstract
Recent observations of galaxies in a cluster at z=0.35 show that their integrated gas-phase metallicities increase with decreasing cluster-centric distance. To test if ram pressure stripping (RPS) is the underlying cause, we use a semi-analytic model to quantify the "observational bias" that RPS introduces into the aperture-based metallicity measurements. We take integral field spectroscopy of local galaxies, remove gas from their outer galactic disks via RPS, and then conduct mock slit observations of cluster galaxies at z=0.35. Our RPS model predicts a typical cluster-scale metallicity gradient of -0.03 dex/Mpc. By removing gas from the outer galactic disks, RPS introduces a mean metallicity enhancement of +0.02 dex at a fixed stellar mass. This gas removal and subsequent quenching of star formation preferentially removes low mass cluster galaxies from the observed star-forming population. As only the more massive star-forming galaxies survive to reach the cluster core, RPS produces a cluster-scale stellar mass gradient of -0.05 log(M_*/M_sun)/Mpc. This mass segregation drives the predicted cluster-scale metallicity gradient of -0.03 dex/Mpc. However, the effects of RPS alone can not explain the higher metallicities measured in cluster galaxies at z=0.35. We hypothesize that additional mechanisms including steep internal metallicity gradients and self-enrichment due to gas strangulation are needed to reproduce our observations at z=0.35.
17 pages, 21 figures, accepted for publication ApJ
References in corpus (18)
- The Host Galaxies and Classification of Active Galactic Nuclei
- Ram pressure stripping the hot gaseous halos of galaxies in groups and clusters
- CALIFA: a diameter-selected sample for an integral field spectroscopy galaxy survey
- Cold gas stripping in satellite galaxies: from pairs to clusters
- Metallicity gradients in local field star-forming galaxies: Insights on inflows, outflows, and the coevolution of gas, stars and metals
- CLASH: The Concentration-Mass Relation of Galaxy Clusters
- Ram pressure stripping of disc galaxies orbiting in clusters. I. Mass and radius of the remaining gas disc
- The strong transformation of spiral galaxies infalling into massive clusters at z~0.2
- Insights on the stellar mass-metallicity relation from the CALIFA survey
- Two-dimensional multi-component photometric decomposition of CALIFA galaxies
- The Role of Environment in the Mass-Metallicity Relation
- The Dependence of Galaxy Morphology and Structure on Environment and Stellar Mass
- Ram pressure stripping in a galaxy formation model. I. A novel numerical approach
- Measuring the fading of S0 galaxies using globular clusters
- On the influence of the environment on galactic chemical abundances
- Radial Distribution Of ISM Gas-phase Metallicity In CLASH Clusters at z~0.35: A New Outlook On Environmental Impact On Galaxy Evolution
- The Bluedisk Survey: molecular gas distribution and scaling relations in the context of galaxy evolution
- SG1120-1202: Mass-Quenching as Tracked by UV Emission in the Group Environment at z=0.37