A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE).XIII. The role of ram-pressure stripping in transforming the diffuse and ultra-diffuse galaxies in the Virgo cluster

Abstract

Low-surface-brightness galaxies (LSBs) contribute to a significant fraction of all the galaxies in the Universe. Ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) form a subclass of LSBs that has attracted a lot of attention in recent years (although its definition may vary between studies). Although UDGs are found in large numbers in galaxy clusters, groups, and in the field, their formation and evolution are still very much debated. Using a comprehensive set of multiwavelength data from the NGVS (optical), VESTIGE (H$\alpha$ narrowband), and GUViCS (UV) surveys, we studied a sample of 64 diffuse galaxies and UDGs in the Virgo cluster to investigate their formation history. We analyzed the photometric colors and surface-brightness profiles of these galaxies and then compared them to models of galaxy evolution, including ram-pressure stripping (RPS) events to infer any possible strong interactions with the hot cluster gas in the past. While our sample consists mainly of red LSBs, which is typical in cluster environments, we found evidence of a color variation with the cluster-centric distance. Blue, HI-bearing, star-forming diffuse galaxies are found at larger distances from the cluster center than the rest of the sample. The comparison of our models with multifrequency observations suggests that most of the galaxies of the sample might have undergone a strong RPS event in their lifetime, on average 1.6 Gyr ago (with a large dispersion, and RPS still ongoing for some of them). This process resulted in the transformation of initially gas-rich diffuse blue galaxies into gas-poor and red ones that form the dominant population now, the more extreme UDGs having undergone the process in a more distant past on average. The RPS in dense environments could be one of the major mechanisms for the formation of the large number of quiescent UDGs we observe in galaxy clusters.

57 pages, 14 Figures, accepted for publication in A&A

References in corpus (29)

• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling I: The relevance of uncertain aspects of stellar evolution and the IMF to the derived physical properties of galaxies
• Some Aspects of Measurement Error in Linear Regression of Astronomical Data
• Stellar Population Inference with Prospector
• Forty-Seven Milky Way-Sized, Extremely Diffuse Galaxies in the Coma Cluster
• Ram Pressure Stripping in High-Density Environments
• The origin of dwarf ellipticals in the Virgo cluster
• The GALEX Ultraviolet Virgo Cluster Survey (GUViCS). IV: The role of the cluster environment on galaxy evolution
• The fate of spiral galaxies in clusters: the star formation history of the anemic Virgo cluster galaxy NGC 4569
• The formation and evolution of low-surface-brightness galaxies
• The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS). XXX. Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies and their Globular Cluster Systems
• Shadows in the Dark: Low-Surface-Brightness Galaxies Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey
• Robust HI kinematics of gas-rich ultra-diffuse galaxies: hints of a weak-feedback formation scenario
• The quenching of the star formation activity in cluster galaxies
• Observational Properties of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies in the Field: Field-UDGs are Predominantly Blue and Starforming
• The origin of the mu_e - M_B and Kormendy relations in dwarf elliptical galaxies
• Stripped gas as fuel for newly formed HII regions in the encounter between VCC1249 and M49: a unified picture from NGVS and GUViCS
• A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE).IX. The effects of ram pressure stripping down to the scale of individual HII regions in the dwarf galaxy IC 3476
• First Gaia Local Group Dynamics: Magellanic Clouds Proper Motion and Rotation
• NIHAO XXI: The emergence of Low Surface Brightness galaxies
• Systematically Measuring Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies (SMUDGes). III. The Southern SMUDGes Catalog
• Clues to the nature of ultra diffuse galaxies from estimated galaxy velocity dispersions
• Spitzer Observations of Low Luminosity Isolated and Low Surface Brightness Galaxies
• Exploring Infrared Properties of Giant Low Surface Brightness Galaxies
• The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS). XXIV. The Red Sequence to $\sim$10${}^6$ L${}_{\odot }$ and Comparisons with Galaxy Formation Models
• The properties of the Malin 1 galaxy giant disk: A panchromatic view from the NGVS and GUViCS surveys
• Transforming gas-rich low-mass disky galaxies into ultra-diffuse galaxies by ram pressure
• A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE).X. Formation of a red ultra-diffuse galaxy and an almost dark galaxy during a ram-pressure stripping event
• First spectroscopic study of ionized gas emission lines in the extreme low surface brightness galaxy Malin 1
• AGC 226178 and NGVS 3543: Two deceptive dwarfs towards Virgo

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Gas-rich, field ultra-diffuse galaxies host few globular clusters
• A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE).XIV. The main sequence relation in a rich environment down to M_star ~ 10^6 Mo
• Euclid: Early Release Observations -- Overview of the Perseus cluster and analysis of its luminosity and stellar mass functions
• MUSE observations of the giant low surface brightness galaxy Malin 1: Numerous HII regions, star formation rate, metallicity, and dust attenuation
• A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE) XV. The Halpha luminosity function of the Virgo cluster
• Shedding Light on Low Surface Brightness Galaxies in Dark Energy Survey with Transformers
• Tracing the evolutionary pathways of dust and cold gas in high-z quiescent galaxies with SIMBA
• Variation of optical and infrared properties of galaxies with their surface brightness
• Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies (UDGs) with Hyper Suprime-Cam I: Revised Catalog of Coma Cluster UDGs
• The ViCTORIA project: description of a multi-frequency radio survey of the Virgo galaxy cluster
• DES to HSC: Detecting low surface brightness galaxies in the Abell 194 cluster using transfer learning
• Unveiling the nature and fate of the almost-dark cloud AGC 226178 through HI mapping
• Deep imaging of the galaxy Malin 2 shows new faint structures and a candidate satellite dwarf galaxy
• The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS). XL. The Morphological Classification of Virgo Cluster Galaxies
• Ultra Diffuse Galaxies in clusters : the peculiar gas loss of VCC 1964
• The influence of the Cosmic Web on the properties of dwarf galaxies in the Fornax-Eridanus Supercluster