No abstract

We present new HST F275W, F475W, and F814W imaging of the region of the Coma cluster around D100, a spiral galaxy with a remarkably long and narrow (60 × 1.5 kpc) ram pressure stripped gas tail. We find blue sources coincident with the Hα tail, which we identify as young stars formed in the tail. We also determine they are likely to be unbound stellar complexes with sizes of ∼ 50 − 100 pc, likely to disperse as they age. From a comparison of the colors and magnitudes of the young stellar complexes with simple stellar population models, we find ages ranging from ∼ 1 − 50 Myr, and masses ranging from 10 3 to ∼ 10 5 M . We find the overall rate and efficiency of star formation are low, ∼ 6.0 × 10 −3 M yr −1 and ∼ 6 × 10 −12 yr −1 respectively. The total Hα flux of the tail would correspond to a SFR 7 times higher, indicating some other mechanism for Hα excitation is dominant. From analysis of colors, we track the progression of outside-in star formation quenching in the main body of D100, as well as its apparent companion the S0 D99. Finally, we observe the dust extinction in the base of the tail has an outer envelope with remarkably smooth and straight edges, and linear filamentary substructure strongly suggestive of magnetic fields. These features and the small amount of tail broadening strongly suggest gas cooling restricting broadening, and the influence of magnetic fields inhibiting turbulence.

We investigate the effects of ram pressure on the molecular interstellar medium (ISM) in the disk of the Coma cluster galaxy NGC 4921 via high-resolution CO observations. We present 6″ resolution CARMA CO(1−0) observations of the full disk, and 0.″4 resolution Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array CO(2−1) observations of the leading quadrant, where ram pressure is strongest. We find evidence for compression of the dense ISM on the leading side, spatially correlated with intense star formation activity in this zone. We also detect molecular gas along kiloparsec-scale filaments of dust extending into the otherwise gas stripped zone of the galaxy, seen in Hubble Space Telescope images. We find the filaments are connected kinematically as well as spatially to the main gas ridge located downstream, consistent with cloud decoupling inhibited by magnetic binding, and inconsistent with a simulated filament formed via simple ablation. Furthermore, we find several clouds of molecular gas ∼1–3 kpc beyond the main ring of CO that have velocities that are blueshifted by up to 50 km s−1 with respect to the rotation curve of the galaxy. These are some of the only clouds we detect that do not have any visible dust extinction associated with them, suggesting that they are located behind the galaxy disk midplane and are falling back toward the galaxy. Simulations have long predicted that some gas removed from the galaxy disk will fall back during ram pressure stripping. This may be the first clear observational evidence of gas re-accretion in a ram pressure stripped galaxy.

High-resolution (1″ × 2″) Atacama Large Millimeter Array CO(2−1) observations of the ram pressure stripped galaxy NGC 4402 in the Virgo cluster show some of the clearest evidence yet for the impacts of ram pressure on the molecular interstellar medium (ISM) of a galaxy. The eastern side of the galaxy at r ∼ 4.5 kpc, upon which ram pressure is incident, has a large (width ∼1 kpc, height ∼1 kpc above the disk midplane) extraplanar plume of molecular gas and dust. Molecular gas in the plume region shows distinct noncircular motions in the direction of the ram pressure; the kinematic offset of up to 60 km s−1 is consistent with acceleration by ram pressure. We also detect a small amount of gas in clouds below the plume that are spatially and kinematically distinct from the surrounding medium, and appear to be decoupled from the stripped ISM. We propose that diffuse molecular gas is directly stripped but giant molecular cloud (GMC) density gas is not directly stripped, and so decouples from lower density stripped gas. However, GMCs become effectively stripped on short timescales. We also find morphological and kinematic signatures of ram pressure compression of molecular gas in a region of intense star formation on the leading side at r ∼ 3.5 kpc. We propose that the compressed and stripped zones represent different evolutionary stages of the ram pressure interaction, and that feedback from star formation in the compressed zone facilitates the effective stripping of GMCs by making the gas cycle rapidly to a lower density diffuse state.

We investigate the resolved kinematics of the molecular gas, as traced by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in CO (2−1), of 25 cluster member galaxies across three different clusters at a redshift of z ∼ 1.6. This is the first large-scale analysis of the molecular gas kinematics of cluster galaxies at this redshift. By separately estimating the rotation curve of the approaching and receding sides of each galaxy via kinematic modeling, we quantify the difference in total circular velocity to characterize the overall kinematic asymmetry of each galaxy. 3/14 of the galaxies in our sample that we are able to model have similar degrees of asymmetry as that observed in galaxies in the field at similar redshift based on observations of mainly ionized gas. However, this leaves 11/14 galaxies in our sample with significantly higher asymmetry, and some of these galaxies have degrees of asymmetry of up to ∼50 times higher than field galaxies observed at similar redshift. Some of these extreme cases also have one-sided tail-like morphology seen in the molecular gas, supporting a scenario of tidal and/or ram pressure interaction. Such stark differences in the kinematic asymmetry in clusters versus the field suggest the evolutionary influence of dense environments, established as being a major driver of galaxy evolution at low redshift, is also active in the high-redshift universe.