GASP (GAs Stripping Phenomena in galaxies with MUSE) is a new integral-field spectroscopic survey with MUSE at the VLT aiming at studying gas removal processes in galaxies. We present an overview of the survey and show a first example of a galaxy undergoing strong gas stripping. GASP is obtaining deep MUSE data for 114 galaxies at z=0.04-0.07 with stellar masses in the range 10 9.2 -10 11.5 M in different environments (galaxy clusters and groups, over more than four orders of magnitude in halo mass). GASP targets galaxies with optical signatures of unilateral debris or tails reminiscent of gas stripping processes ("jellyfish galaxies"), as well as a control sample of disk galaxies with no morphological anomalies. GASP is the only existing Integral Field Unit (IFU) survey covering both the main galaxy body and the outskirts and surroundings, where the IFU data can reveal the presence and the origin of the outer gas. To demonstrate GASP's ability to probe the physics of gas and stars, we show the complete analysis of a textbook case of a "jellyfish" galaxy, JO206. This is a massive galaxy (9 × 10 10 M ) in a low-mass cluster (σ ∼ 500 km s −1 ), at a small projected clustercentric radius and a high relative velocity, with ≥90kpc-long tentacles of ionized gas stripped away by ram pressure. We present the spatially resolved kinematics and physical properties of gas and stars, and depict the evolutionary history of this galaxy.

Galaxies that are being stripped of their gas can sometimes be recognized from their optical appearance. Extreme examples of stripped galaxies are the so-called "jellyfish galaxies" that exhibit tentacles of debris material with a characteristic jellyfish morphology. We have conducted the first systematic search for galaxies that are being stripped of their gas at low-z (z = 0.04−0.07) in different environments, selecting galaxies with varying degrees of morphological evidence for stripping. We have visually inspected B-and V-band images and identified 344 candidates in 71 galaxy clusters of the OMEGAWINGS+WINGS sample and 75 candidates in groups and lower mass structures in the PM2GC sample. We present the atlas of stripping candidates and a first analysis of their environment and their basic properties, such as morphologies, star formation rates and galaxy stellar masses.Candidates are found in all clusters and at all clustercentric radii, and their number does not correlate with the cluster velocity dispersion σ or X-ray luminosity L X . Interestingly, convincing cases of candidates are also found in groups and lower mass halos (10 11 −10 14 M e ), although the physical mechanism at work needs to be securely identified. All the candidates are disky, have stellar masses ranging from log M/M e <9 to > 11.5 and the majority of them form stars at a rate that is on average a factor of 2 higher (2.5σ) compared to non-stripped galaxies of similar mass. The few post-starburst and passive candidates have weak stripping evidence. We conclude that disturbed morphologies suggestive of stripping phenomena are ubiquitous in clusters and could be present even in groups and low mass halos. Further studies will reveal the physics of the gas stripping and clarify the mechanisms at work.

We search for massive and compact galaxies (superdense galaxies, hereafter SDGs) at z = 0.03 − 0.11 in the Padova-Millennium Galaxy and Group Catalogue, a spectroscopically complete sample representative of the local Universe general field population. We find that compact galaxies with radii and mass densities comparable to high-z massive and passive galaxies represent 4.4% of all galaxies with stellar masses above 3 × 10 10 M ⊙ , yielding a number density of 4.3 × 10 −4 h 3 Mpc −3 . Most of them are S0s (70%) or ellipticals (23%), are red and have intermediate-to-old stellar populations, with a median luminosity-weighted age of 5.4 Gyr and a median mass-weighted age of 9.2 Gyr. Their velocity dispersions and dynamical masses are consistent with the small radii and high stellar mass estimates. Comparing with the WINGS sample of cluster galaxies at similar redshifts, the fraction of superdense galaxies is three times smaller in the field than in clusters, and cluster SDGs are on average 4 Gyr older than field SDGs. We confirm the existence of a universal trend of smaller radii for older luminosity-weighted ages at fixed galaxy mass. As a consequence, the median mass-size relation shifts towards smaller radii for galaxies with older stars, but the effect is much more pronounced in clusters than in the field. Our results show that, on top of the well known dependence of stellar age on galaxy mass, the luminosity-weighted age of galaxies depends on galaxy compactness at fixed mass, and, for a fixed mass and radius, on environment. This effect needs to be taken into account in order not to overestimate the evolution of galaxy sizes from high-to low-z. Our results and hierarchical simulations suggest that a significant fraction of the massive compact galaxies at high-z have evolved into compact galaxies in galaxy clusters today. When stellar age and environmental effects are taken into account, the average amount of size evolution of individual galaxies between high-and low-z is mild, a factor ∼ 1.6.

Massive quiescent galaxies at z > 1 have been found to have small physical sizes, and hence to be superdense. Several mechanisms, including minor mergers, have been proposed for increasing galaxy sizes from high-to low-z. We search for superdense massive galaxies in the WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (WINGS) of X-ray selected galaxy clusters at 0.04 < z < 0.07. We discover a significant population of superdense massive galaxies with masses and sizes comparable to those observed at high redshift. They approximately represent 22% of all cluster galaxies more massive than 3 × 10 10 M , are mostly S0 galaxies, have a median effective radius R e = 1.61 ± 0.29 kpc, a median Sersic index n = 3.0 ± 0.6, and very old stellar populations with a median mass-weighted age of 12.1 ± 1.3 Gyr. We calculate a number density of 2.9 × 10 −2 Mpc −3 for superdense galaxies in local clusters, and a hard lower limit of 1.3 × 10 −5 Mpc −3 in the whole comoving volume between z = 0.04 and z = 0.07. We find a relation between mass, effective radius, and luminosity-weighted age in our cluster galaxies, which can mimic the claimed evolution of the radius with redshift, if not properly taken into account. We compare our data with spectroscopic high-z surveys and find that-when stellar masses are considered-there is consistency with the local WINGS galaxy sizes out to z ∼ 2, while a discrepancy of a factor of 3 exists with the only spectroscopic z > 2 study. In contrast, there is strong evidence for a large evolution in radius for the most massive galaxies with M * > 4 × 10 11 M compared to similarly massive galaxies in WINGS, i.e., the brightest cluster galaxies.

Based on MUSE data from the GASP survey, we study the Hα-emitting extraplanar tails of 16 cluster galaxies at z ∼ 0.05 undergoing ram pressure stripping. We demonstrate that the dominating ionization mechanism of this gas (between 64% and 94% of the Hα emission in the tails depending on the diagnostic diagram used) is photoionization by young massive stars due to ongoing star formation (SF) taking place in the stripped tails. This SF occurs in dynamically quite cold HII clumps with a median Hα velocity dispersion σ = 27 km s −1 . We study the characteristics of over 500 star-forming clumps in the tails and find median values of Hα luminosity L Hα = 4 × 10 38 erg s −1 , dust extinction A V = 0.5 mag, star formation rate SFR= 0.003 M yr −1 , ionized gas density n e = 52 cm −3 , ionized gas mass M gas = 4 × 10 4 M , and stellar mass M * = 3 × 10 6 M . The tail clumps follow scaling relations (M gas − M * , L Hα − σ, SFR-M gas ) similar to disk clumps, and their stellar masses are comparable to Ultra Compact Dwarfs and Globular Clusters. The diffuse gas component in the tails is ionized by a combination of SF and composite/LINER-like emission likely due to thermal conduction or turbulence. The stellar photoionization component of the diffuse gas can be due either to leakage of ionizing photons from the HII clumps with an average escape fraction of 18%, or lower luminosity HII regions that we cannot individually identify.

When a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy accretes matter, it gives rise to a highly energetic phenomenon: an active galactic nucleus. Numerous physical processes have been proposed to account for the funnelling of gas towards the galactic centre to feed the black hole. There are also several physical processes that can remove gas from a galaxy, one of which is ram-pressure stripping by the hot gas that fills the space between galaxies in galaxy clusters. Here we report that six out of a sample of seven 'jellyfish' galaxies-galaxies with long 'tentacles' of material that extend for dozens of kiloparsecs beyond the galactic disks-host an active nucleus, and two of them also have galactic-scale ionization cones. The high incidence of nuclear activity among heavily stripped jellyfish galaxies may be due to ram pressure causing gas to flow towards the centre and triggering the activity, or to an enhancement of the stripping caused by energy injection from the active nucleus, or both. Our analysis of the galactic position and velocity relative to the cluster strongly supports the first hypothesis, and puts forward ram pressure as another possible mechanism for feeding the central supermassive black hole with gas.

Context. Studies of the properties of low-redshift cluster galaxies suffer, in general, from small spatial coverage of the cluster area. WINGS, the most homogeneous and complete study of galaxies in dense environments to date, obtained spectroscopic redshifts for 48 clusters at a median redshift of 0.05, out to an average distance of approximately 0.5 cluster virial radii. The WINGS photometric survey was recently extended by the VST survey OmegaWINGS to cover the outskirts of a subset of the original cluster sample. Aims. In this work, we present the spectroscopic follow-up of 33 of the 46 clusters of galaxies observed with VST over 1 square degree. The aim of this spectroscopic survey is to enlarge the number of cluster members and study the galaxy characteristics and the cluster dynamical properties out to large radii, reaching the virial radius and beyond. Methods. We used the AAOmega spectrograph at AAT to obtain fiber-integrated spectra covering the wavelength region between 3800 and 9000 Å with a spectral resolution of 3.5−6 Å full width at half maximum (FWHM). Observations were performed using two different configurations and exposure times per cluster. We measured redshifts using both absorption and emission lines and used them to derive the cluster redshifts and velocity dispersions. Results. We present here the redshift measurements for 17 985 galaxies, 7497 of which turned out to be cluster members. The sample magnitude completeness is 80% at V = 20. Thanks to the observing strategy, the radial completeness turned out to be relatively constant (90%) within the AAOmega field of view. The success rate in measuring redshifts is 95%, at all radii. Conclusions. We provide redshifts for the full sample of galaxies in OmegaWINGS clusters together with updated and robust cluster redshift and velocity dispersions. These data, publicly accessible through the CDS and VO archives, will enable evolutionary and environmental studies of cluster properties, providing a local benchmark.

This paper presents a spatially-resolved kinematic study of the jellyfish galaxy JO201, one of the most spectacular cases of ram-pressure stripping (RPS) in the GASP (GAs Stripping Phenomena in Galaxies with MUSE) survey. By studying the environment of JO201, we find that it is moving through the dense intra-cluster medium of Abell 85 at supersonic speeds along our line of sight, and that it is likely accompanied by a small group of galaxies. Given the density of the intra-cluster medium and the galaxy's mass, projected position and velocity within the cluster, we estimate that JO201 must so far have lost ∼ 50% of its gas during infall via RPS. The MUSE data indeed reveal a smooth stellar disk, accompanied by large projected tails of ionised (Hα) gas, composed of kinematically cold (velocity dispersion < 40km s −1 ) star-forming knots and very warm (> 100km s −1 ) diffuse emission which extend out to at least ∼50 kpc from the galaxy centre. The ionised Hα-emitting gas in the disk rotates with the stars out to ∼ 6 kpc but in the disk outskirts becomes increasingly redshifted with respect to the (undisturbed) stellar disk. The observed disturbances are consistent with the presence of gas trailing behind the stellar component, resulting from intense face-on RPS happening along the line of sight. Our kinematic analysis is consistent with the estimated fraction of lost gas, and reveals that stripping of the disk happens outside-in, causing shock heating and gas compression in the stripped tails.