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Cluster mergers may play a fundamental role in the formation and evolution of cluster galaxies. Stroe et al. revealed unexpected overdensities of candidate Hα emitters near the ~1-Mpc-wide shock fronts of the massive (~2 × 1015 M⊙) 'Sausage' merging cluster, CIZA J2242.8+5301. We used the Keck/Deep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph and the William Herschel Telescope/AutoFib2+WYFFOS to confirm 83 Hα emitters in and around the merging cluster. We find that cluster star-forming galaxies in the hottest X-ray gas and/or in the cluster subcores (away from the shock fronts) show high [S II]6716/[S II]6761 and high [S II] 6716/Hα, implying very low electron densities ( 2.5 Mpc). This suggests that the shock front may have triggered remaining metal-rich gas which galaxies were able to retain into forming stars. Our observations show that the merger of impressively massive (~1015 M⊙) clusters can provide the conditions for significant star formation and AGN activity, but, as we witness strong feedback by star-forming galaxies and AGN (and given how massive the merging cluster is), such sources will likely quench in a few 100 Myr.

CIZA J2242.8+5301 ('Sausage') and 1RXS J0603.3+4213 ('Toothbrush') are two lowredshift (z ~ 0.2), massive (~2 × 1015M·), post-core passage merging clusters, which host-shock waves traced by diffuse radio emission. To study their star formation properties, we uniformly survey the 'Sausage' and 'Toothbrush' clusters in broad- and narrow-band filters and select a sample of 201 and 463 line emitters, down to a rest-frame equivalent width (13 Å). We robustly separate between Hα and higher redshift emitters using a combination of optical multiband (B, g, V, r, i, z) and spectroscopic data. We build Hα luminosity functions for the entire cluster region, near the shock fronts, and away from the shock fronts and find striking differences between the two clusters. In the dynamically younger, 1 Gyr old 'Sausage' cluster we find numerous (59) Hα emitters above a star formation rate (SFR) of 0.17 M· yr-1 surprisingly located in close proximity to the shock fronts, embedded in very hot intracluster medium plasma. The SFR density for the cluster population is at least at the level of typical galaxies at z ~2. Down to the same SFR, the possibly dynamically more evolved 'Toothbrush' cluster has only nine Hα galaxies. The cluster Hα galaxies fall on the SFR-stellarmass relation z ~ 0.2 for the field. However, the 'Sausage' cluster has an Hαa emitter density >20 times that of blank fields. If the shock passes through gas-rich cluster galaxies, the compressed gas could collapse into dense clouds and excite star formation for a few 100 Myr. This process ultimately leads to a rapid consumption of the molecular gas, accelerating the transformation of gas-rich field spirals into cluster S0s or ellipticals.