Aims. We investigate the dependence of star formation and the distribution of the components of galaxies on the strength of ram pressure. Several mock observations in X-ray, Hα and HI wavelength for different ram-pressure scenarios are presented. Methods. By applying a combined N-body/hydrodynamic description (GADGET-2) with radiative cooling and a recipe for star formation and stellar feedback 12 different ram-pressure stripping scenarios for disc galaxies were calculated. Special emphasis was put on the gas within the disc and in the surroundings. All gas particles within the computational domain having the same mass resolution. The relative velocity was varied from 100 km s −1 to 1000 km s −1 in different surrounding gas densities in the range from 1 × 10 −28 to 5 × 10 −27 g/cm 3 . The temperature of the surrounding gas was initially 1 × 10 7 K. Results. The star formation of a galaxy is enhanced by more than a magnitude in the simulation with a high ram-pressure (5 × 10 −11 dyn/cm 2 ) in comparison to the same system evolving in isolation. The enhancement of the star formation depends more on the surrounding gas density than on the relative velocity. Up to 95% of all newly formed stars can be found in the wake of the galaxy out to distances of more than 350 kpc behind the stellar disc. Continuously stars fall back to the old stellar disc, building up a bulge-like structure. Young stars can be found throughout the stripped wake with surface densities locally comparable to values in the inner stellar disc. Ram-pressure stripping can shift the location of star formation from the disc into the wake on very short timescales. As the gas in a galaxy has a complex velocity pattern due to the rotation and spiral arms, the superposition of the internal velocity field and the ram pressure causes complex structures in the gaseous wake which survive dynamically up to several 100 Myr. Finally we provide simulated X-ray, Hα and HI observations to be able to compare our results with observations in these wavebands. These simulated observations show many features which depend strongly both on the strength and the duration of the external ram pressure.

Aims. We investigate the influence of ram-pressure stripping on the star formation and the mass distribution in simulated spiral galaxies. Special emphasis is put on the question of where the newly formed stars are located. The stripping radius from the simulation is compared to analytical estimates. Methods. Disc galaxies are modelled in combined N-body/hydrodynamic simulations (GADGET-2) with prescriptions for cooling, star formation, stellar feedback, and galactic winds. These model galaxies move through a constant density and temperature gas, which has parameters comparable to the intra-cluster medium (ICM) in the outskirts of a galaxy cluster (T = 3 keV ≈ 3.6 × 10 7 K and ρ = 10 −28 g/cm 3 ). With this numerical setup we analyse the influence of ram-pressure stripping on the star formation rate of the model galaxy. Results. We find that the star formation rate is significantly enhanced by the ram-pressure effect (up to a factor of 3). Stars form in the compressed central region of the galaxy, as well as in the stripped gas behind the galaxy. Newly formed stars can be found up to hundred kpc behind the disc, forming structures with sizes of roughly 1 kpc in diameter and with masses of up to 10 7 M . As they do not possess a dark matter halo due to their formation history, we name them "stripped baryonic dwarf" galaxies. We also find that the analytical estimate for the stripping radius from a Gunn & Gott (1972) criterion agrees well with the numerical value from the simulation. Like in former investigations, edge-on systems lose less gas than face-on systems, and the resulting spatial distribution of the gas and the newly formed stars is different.

We investigate the impact of galactic mass loss triggered by ram-pressure stripping of cluster galaxies on the evolution of the intracluster medium (ICM). We use combined N-body and hydrodynamic simulations together with a phenomenological galaxy formation model and a prescription of the effect of ram-pressure stripping on the galaxies. We analyze the effect of galaxy -ICM interaction for different model clusters with different masses and different merger histories. Our simulations show that ram-pressure stripping can account for ∼10% of the overall observed level of enrichment in the ICM within a radius of 1.3 Mpc. The efficiency of metal ejection of cluster galaxies depends in the first few Gyr of the simulation mainly on the cluster mass and is significantly increased during major merger events. Additionally we show that ram-pressure stripping is most efficient in the center of the galaxy cluster and the level of enrichment drops quite fast at larger radii. We present emission-weighted metallicity maps of the ICM which can be compared with X-ray observations. The resulting distribution of metals in the ICM shows a complex pattern with stripes and plumes of metal-rich material. The metallicity maps can be used to trace the present and past interactions between the ICM and cluster galaxies.

Abstract. We present numerical simulations of galaxy clusters which include interaction processes between the galaxies and the intra-cluster gas. The considered interaction processes are galactic winds and ram-pressure stripping, which both transfer metal-enriched interstellar medium into the intra-cluster gas and hence increase its metallicity. We investigate the efficiency and time evolution of the interaction processes by simulated metallicity maps, which are directly comparable to those obtained from X-ray observations. We find that ram-pressure stripping is more efficient than quiet (i.e. non-starburst driven) galactic winds in the redshift interval between 1 and 0. The expelled metals are not mixed immediately with the intra-cluster gas, but inhomogeneities are visible in the metallicity maps. Even stripes of higher metallicity that a single galaxy has left behind can be seen. The spatial distribution of the metals transported by ram-pressure stripping and by galactic winds are very different for massive clusters: the former process yields a centrally concentrated metal distribution while the latter results in an extended metal distribution.

We present an investigation of the metal enrichment of the intra-cluster medium (ICM) by galactic winds and merger-driven starbursts. We use combined N-body/hydrodynamic simulations with a semi-numerical galaxy formation model. The mass loss by galactic winds is obtained by calculating transonic solutions of steady state outflows, driven by thermal, cosmic ray and MHD wave pressure. The inhomogeneities in the metal distribution caused by these processes are an ideal tool to reveal the dynamical state of a galaxy cluster. We present surface brightness, X-ray emission weighted temperature and metal maps of our model clusters as they would be observed by X-ray telescopes like XMM-Newton. We show that X-ray weighted metal maps distinguish between pre-or post-merger galaxy clusters by comparing the metallicity distribution with the galaxy-density distribution: pre-mergers have a metallicity gap between the subclusters, post-mergers a high metallicity between subclusters. We apply our approach to two observed galaxy clusters, Abell 3528 and Abell 3921, to show whether they are pre-or post-merging systems. The survival time of the inhomogeneities in the metallicity distribution found in our simulations is up to several Gyr. We show that galactic winds and merger-driven starbursts enrich the ICM very efficiently after z = 1 in the central (∼3 Mpc radius) region of a galaxy cluster.