Search

We present the analysis of the emission line galaxies members of 46 low redshift (0.04 < z < 0.07) clusters observed by WINGS (WIde-field Nearby Galaxy cluster Survey, Fasano et al. 2006). Emission line galaxies were identified following criteria that are meant to minimize biases against non-star forming galaxies and classified employing diagnostic diagrams. We have examined the emission line properties and frequencies of star forming galaxies, transition objects and active galactic nuclei (AGNs: LINERs and Seyferts), unclassified galaxies with emission lines, and quiescent galaxies with no detectable line emission. A deficit of emission line galaxies in the cluster environment is indicated by both a lower frequency with respect to control samples, and by a systematically lower Balmer emission line equivalent width and luminosity (up to one order of magnitude in equivalent width with respect to control samples for transition objects) that implies a lower amount of ionised gas per unit mass and a lower star formation rate if the source is classified as Hii region. A sizable population of transition objects and of low-luminosity LINERs (approx. 10 - 20% of all emission line galaxies) is detected among WINGS cluster galaxies. With respect to Hii sources they are a factor of approx. 1.5 more frequent than (or at least as frequent as) in control samples. Transition objects and LINERs in cluster are most affected in terms of line equivalent width by the environment and appear predominantly consistent with "retired" galaxies. Shock heating can be a possible gas excitation mechanism able to account for observed line ratios. Specific to the cluster environment, we suggest interaction between atomic and molecular gas and the intracluster medium as a possible physical cause of line-emitting shocks., Astronomy and Astrophysics, accepted

Within a cluster, gravitational effects can lead to the removal of stars from their parent galaxies. Gas hydrodynamical effects can additionally strip gas and dust from galaxies. The properties of the ICL can therefore help constrain the physical processes at work in clusters by serving as a fossil record of the interaction history. The present study is designed to characterise this ICL in a ~10^14 M_odot and z~0.53 cluster of galaxies from imaging and spectroscopic points of view. By applying a wavelet-based method to CFHT Megacam and WIRCAM images, we detect significant quantities of diffuse light. These sources were then spectroscopically characterised with MUSE. MUSE data were also used to compute redshifts of 24 cluster galaxies and search for cluster substructures. An atypically large amount of ICL has been detected in this cluster. Part of the detected diffuse light has a very weak optical stellar component and apparently consists mainly of gas emission, while other diffuse light sources are clearly dominated by old stars. Furthermore, emission lines were detected in several places of diffuse light. Our spectral analysis shows that this emission likely originates from low-excitation parameter gas. The stellar contribution to the ICL is about 2.3x10^9 yrs old even though the ICL is not currently forming a large number of stars. On the other hand, the contribution of the gas emission to the ICL in the optical is much greater than the stellar contribution in some regions, but the gas density is likely too low to form stars. These observations favour ram pressure stripping, turbulent viscous stripping, or supernovae winds as the origin of the large amount of intracluster light. Since the cluster appears not to be in a major merging phase, we conclude that ram pressure stripping is the most plausible process that generates the observed ICL sources., Accepted in A&A, english enhanced, figure location different than in the A&A version due to different style files, shortened abstract

The XXL Survey is the largest homogeneous and contiguous survey carried out with XMM-Newton. Covering an area of 50 square degrees distributed over two fields, it primarily investigates the large-scale structures of the Universe using the distribution of galaxy clusters and active galactic nuclei as tracers of the matter distribution. Given its depth and sky coverage, XXL is particularly suited to systematically unveiling the clustering of X-ray clusters and to identifying superstructures in a homogeneous X-ray sample down to the typical mass scale of a local massive cluster. A friends-of-friends algorithm in three-dimensional physical space was run to identify large-scale structures. In this paper we report the discovery of the highest redshift supercluster of galaxies found in the XXL Survey. We describe the X-ray properties of the clusters members of the structure and the optical follow-up. The newly discovered supercluster is composed of six clusters of galaxies at a median redshift z around 0.43 and distributed across approximately 30 by 15 arc minutes (10 by 5 Mpc on sky) on the sky. This structure is very compact with all the clusters residing in one XMM pointing; for this reason this is the first supercluster discovered with the XXL Survey. Spectroscopic follow-up with WHT (William Herschel Telescope) and NTT (New Technology Telescope) confirmed a median redshift of z = 0.43. An estimate of the X-ray mass and luminosity of this supercluster and of its total gas mass put XLSSC-e at the average mass range of superclusters; its appearance, with two members of equal size, is quite unusual with respect to other superclusters and provides a unique view of the formation process of a massive structure., A&A, accepted; special XXL issue

We present the XXL Survey, the largest XMM programme totaling some 6.9 Ms to date and involving an international consortium of roughly 100 members. The XXL Survey covers two extragalactic areas of 25 deg2 each at a point-source sensitivity of ~ 5E-15 erg/sec/cm2 in the [0.5-2] keV band (completeness limit). The survey's main goals are to provide constraints on the dark energy equation of state from the space-time distribution of clusters of galaxies and to serve as a pathfinder for future, wide-area X-ray missions. We review science objectives, including cluster studies, AGN evolution, and large-scale structure, that are being conducted with the support of approximately 30 follow-up programmes. We describe the 542 XMM observations along with the associated multi-lambda and numerical simulation programmes. We give a detailed account of the X-ray processing steps and describe innovative tools being developed for the cosmological analysis. The paper provides a thorough evaluation of the X-ray data, including quality controls, photon statistics, exposure and background maps, and sky coverage. Source catalogue construction and multi-lambda associations are briefly described. This material will be the basis for the calculation of the cluster and AGN selection functions, critical elements of the cosmological and science analyses. The XXL multi-lambda data set will have a unique lasting legacy value for cosmological and extragalactic studies and will serve as a calibration resource for future dark energy studies with clusters and other X-ray selected sources. With the present article, we release the XMM XXL photon and smoothed images along with the corresponding exposure maps. The XMM XXL observation list (Table B.1) is available in electronic form at the CDS. The present paper is the first in a series reporting results of the XXL-XMM survey., Comment: 17 pages, accepted in A&A

Context. The XXL Survey is the largest survey carried out by the XMM-Newton satellite and covers a total area of 50 square degrees distributed over two fields. It primarily aims at investigating the large-scale structures of the Universe using the distribution of galaxy clusters and active galactic nuclei as tracers of the matter distribution. Aims. This article presents the XXL bright cluster sample, a subsample of 100 galaxy clusters selected from the full XXL catalogue by setting a lower limit of $3\times 10^{-14}\,\mathrm{erg \,s^{-1}cm^{-2}}$ on the source flux within a 1$^{\prime}$ aperture. Methods. The selection function was estimated using a mixture of Monte Carlo simulations and analytical recipes that closely reproduce the source selection process. An extensive spectroscopic follow-up provided redshifts for 97 of the 100 clusters. We derived accurate X-ray parameters for all the sources. Scaling relations were self-consistently derived from the same sample in other publications of the series. On this basis, we study the number density, luminosity function, and spatial distribution of the sample. Results. The bright cluster sample consists of systems with masses between $M_{500}=7\times 10^{13}$ and $3\times 10^{14} M_\odot$, mostly located between $z=0.1$ and 0.5. The observed sky density of clusters is slightly below the predictions from the WMAP9 model, and significantly below the predictions from the Planck 2015 cosmology. In general, within the current uncertainties of the cluster mass calibration, models with higher values of $\sigma_8$ and/or $\Omega_m$ appear more difficult to accommodate. We provide tight constraints on the cluster differential luminosity function and find no hint of evolution out to $z\sim1$. We also find strong evidence for the presence of large-scale structures in the XXL bright cluster sample and identify five new superclusters., Comment: Accepted by A&A, 25 pages, 17 figures, 7 tables. The XXL-100-GC Master catalogue is available from the XXL Milan database (http://cosmosdb.iasf-milano.inaf.it/XXL/) and through the CDS (cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr)

We present a detailed study of the colours in late-type galaxy discs for ten of the EDisCS galaxy clusters with 0.5 < z < 0.8. Our cluster sample contains 172 spiral galaxies, and our control sample is composed of 96 field disc galaxies. We deconvolve their ground-based V and I images obtained with FORS2 at the VLT with initial spatial resolutions between 0.4 and 0.8 arcsec to achieve a final resolution of 0.1 arcsec with 0.05 arcsec pixels, which is close to the resolution of the ACS at the HST. After removing the central region of each galaxy to avoid pollution by the bulges, we measured the V-I colours of the discs. We find that 50% of cluster spiral galaxies have disc V-I colours redder by more than 1 sigma of the mean colours of their field counterparts. This is well above the 16% expected for a normal distribution centred on the field disc properties. The prominence of galaxies with red discs depends neither on the mass of their parent cluster nor on the distance of the galaxies to the cluster cores. Passive spiral galaxies constitute 20% of our sample. These systems are not abnormally dusty. They are are made of old stars and are located on the cluster red sequences. Another 24% of our sample is composed of galaxies that are still active and star forming, but less so than galaxies with similar morphologies in the field. These galaxies are naturally located in the blue sequence of their parent cluster colour-magnitude diagrams. The reddest of the discs in clusters must have stopped forming stars more than ~5 Gyr ago. Some of them are found among infalling galaxies, suggesting preprocessing. Our results confirm that galaxies are able to continue forming stars for some significant period of time after being accreted into clusters, and suggest that star formation can decline on seemingly long (1 to 5 Gyr) timescales., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A

In a hierarchical Universe clusters grow via the accretion of galaxies from the field, groups and even other clusters. As this happens, galaxies can lose their gas reservoirs via different mechanisms, eventually quenching their star-formation. We explore the diverse environmental histories of galaxies through a multi-wavelength study of the combined effect of ram-pressure stripping and group "processing" in Abell 963, a massive growing cluster at $z=0.2$ from the Blind Ultra Deep HI Environmental Survey (BUDHIES). We incorporate hundreds of new optical redshifts (giving a total of 566 cluster members), as well as Subaru and XMM-Newton data from LoCuSS, to identify substructures and evaluate galaxy morphology, star-formation activity, and HI content (via HI deficiencies and stacking) out to $3\times R_{200}$. We find that Abell 963 is being fed by at least 7 groups, that contribute to the large number of passive galaxies outside the cluster core. More massive groups have a higher fraction of passive and HI-poor galaxies, while low-mass groups host younger (often interacting) galaxies. For cluster galaxies not associated with groups we corroborate our previous finding that HI gas (if any) is significantly stripped via ram-pressure during their first passage through the intra-cluster medium, and find mild evidence for a starburst associated with this event. In addition, we find an overabundance of morphologically peculiar and/or star-forming galaxies near the cluster core. We speculate that these arise as groups pass through the cluster (post-processing). Our study highlights the importance of environmental quenching and the complexity added by evolving environments., 21 pages and 21 figures (including appendix). Accepted for publication in MNRAS. v2: minor changes to match published version

Knowledge of galaxy evolution rests on cross-sectional observations of different objects at different times. Understanding of galaxy evolution rests on longitudinal interpretations of how these data relate to individual objects moving through time. The connection between the two is often assumed to be clear, but we use a simple "physics-free" model to show that it is not, and that exploring its nuances can yield new insights. Comprising nothing more than $2094$ loosely constrained lognormal star formation histories (SFHs), the model faithfully reproduces the following data it was not designed to match: stellar mass functions at $z\leq8$; the slope of the star formation rate/stellar mass relation (the SF "Main Sequence") at $z\leq6$; the mean ${\rm sSFR}(\equiv{\rm SFR}/M_*)$ of low-mass galaxies at $z\leq7$; "fast-" and "slow-track" quenching; downsizing; and a correlation between formation timescale and ${\rm sSFR}(M_*; t)$ similar to results from simulations that provides a natural connection to bulge growth. We take these findings---which suggest that quenching is the natural downturn of all SFHs affecting galaxies at rates/times correlated with their densities---to mean that: (1) models in which galaxies are diversified on Hubble timescales by something like initial conditions rival the dominant grow-and-quench framework as good descriptions of the data; or (2) absent spatial information, many metrics of galaxy evolution are too undiscriminating---if not inherently misleading---to confirm a unique explanation. We outline future tests of our model but stress that, even if ultimately incorrect, it illustrates how exploring different paradigms can aid learning and, we hope, more detailed modeling efforts., 25 pages, 18 figures (including appendices); Accepted to ApJ (ApJ, 832, 7A). This version incorporates minor revisions from the refereeing process, including the addition of one new figure ("C1") and appendix ("C"). All original results are unchanged

X-ray extragalactic surveys are ideal laboratories for the study of the evolution and clustering of active galactic nuclei (AGN). The XXL Survey spans two fields of a combined 50 $deg^2$ observed for more than 6Ms with XMM-Newton, occupying the parameter space between deep surveys and very wide area surveys; at the same time it benefits from a wealth of ancillary data. This paper marks the first release of the XXL point source catalogue selected in the 2-10 keV energy band with limiting flux $F_{2-10keV}=4.8\cdot10^{-14}\rm{erg\,s^{-1}\,cm^{-2}}$. We use both public and proprietary data sets to identify the counterparts of the X-ray point-like sources and improved upon the photometric redshift determination for AGN by applying a Random Forest classification trained to identify for each object the optimal photometric redshift model library. We also assign a probability to each source to be a star or an outlier. We model with Bayesian analysis the X-ray spectra assuming a power-law model with the presence of an absorbing medium. We find an average unabsorbed photon index of $\Gamma=1.85$ and average hydrogen column density $\log{N_{H}}=21.07 cm^{-2}$. We find no trend of $\Gamma$ or $N_H$ with redshift and a fraction of 26% absorbed sources ($\log N_{H}>22$). We show that the XXL-1000-AGN number counts extended the number counts of the COSMOS survey to higher fluxes and are fully consistent with the Euclidean expectation. We constrain the intrinsic luminosity function of AGN in the 2-10 keV energy band where the unabsorbed X-ray flux is estimated from the X-ray spectral fit up to z=3. Finally, we demonstrate the presence of a supercluster size structure at redshift 0.14, identified by means of percolation analysis of the XXL-1000-AGN sample. The XXL survey, reaching a medium flux limit and covering a wide area is a stepping stone between current deep fields and planned wide area surveys., Comment: 29 pages, 20 figures, 120 figures in the appendix, accepted for publication in A&A

In Chapter 6 we outlined the research strategies implemented for the studies of high redshift galaxies, briefly addressed their structures, morphologies and star formation, discussed the ancestor problem and touched the theme of the origin of the first galaxies. With this Chapter we certainly enter in the modern view of galaxies, as members of a big society. Up to now we have essentially described and characterized the properties of nearby isolated galaxies, that are sufficiently relaxed to show their almost unperturbed properties. However the history of this society, not differently from the man society, is full of conflicts and battles for surviving. The present knowledge of the cosmic web, of the hierarchical nature of the structures in the Universe, and of the galaxy components have clearly demonstrated that gravitational interactions, gas accretion and outflows, as well as merging events and gravitational interactions are the true past history of galaxies. Galaxies change their structure and morphology across the Hubble time and many of their observed properties today depend on their past history, as well as in many cases on the environment in which they evolved. The title of this Chapter reflects our tentative effort of looking at galaxies along this viewpoint. What are the current boundaries of the galaxy concept? In other words, to what extent the structures we see today were present in the past and what are their limits in mass, luminosity, size, stellar populations and chemical enrichment across the Hubble time? What is the role of the dark matter? In which way the energetic phenomena observed in the galaxy nuclei and in SNe have changed the properties of galaxies? The suspect is that we have built the concept of galaxies looking only at their mature appearance and not at their whole life. Can we speak of man describing only its adult phase and not considering his interaction with the whole society? The following interviews will clarify several things connected to this new point of view. We start in Sec. 7.2 with a nice review of the effects of gravitational interactions and merging that will highlight the progresses done by simulations since the early Toomre’ pioneering work. We then address in Sec. 7.3 the problem of the disk assembling and the remarkable extended UV disks found in many galaxies. The current limits in the mass function of galaxies, from dwarfs to giants, are discussed in Sec. 7.4. The various effects of the presence of an AGN at the center of galaxies are analyzed in Sec. 7.5, while the activity of SNe is addressed in Sec. 7.6. Finally, Sec. 7.7 provide the different point of views on the role and nature of the dark matter.

Since the most ancient times astronomers felt the need to collect and list in atlases and catalogs all the visible objects in the sky the first stellar catalog known in the western world being the one of Hipparchus (II century BC). We have to wait until Charles Messier at the end of the XVIII century to have the first incidental catalog of nebulae, i.e. including a mixture of fuzzy objects, nebulæ, that telescopes of the epoch could detect. In Chapter 1 we have already discussed the atlases and catalogs that soon after the discovery of galaxies appeared in the literature describing the properties of the nearby galaxies, in particular their morphologies in Chapter 3. The subject of extragalactic papers, during the photographic plate era, were one or few galaxies, whose properties were carefully scrutinized looking at all details resolved by telescopes in the optical waveband. This happens also today, of course, basically at all wavelengths. However, the impact of new technologies permits in the last two decades to tackle survey programs addressed to the study of specific extragalactic problems considering millions of galaxies. These systematic investigations of enormous galaxy samples requires dedicated observing, reduction and storing/retrieval facilities provided, in the Big Science era, by international consortia. Data are treated in a statistically way, combining the multi-wavelength information coming from several instruments, scanning galaxy properties as a function of the redshift and of the environment. The big teams of scientists and engineers that has planned and built the instrumental facilities, including sometimes the telescopes themselves, are also charged of providing a nearly immediate access to the data, as well as their maintenance and calibration. The data are easy available through simple queries on the web. Usually one of the main step of these large teams is to build a catalog of the detected sources, providing the first measures typically obtained from automatic softwares of analysis. These data are then cross-correlated with other data available for the same sources in the web databases, possibly refined with better calibration. Relations between entries are evaluated and discussed at the light of theoretical models and simulations by members of the same team. Observations have the strong tendency to produce facts so models are refined and data-set revisited and/or integrated with new observations. This Chapter is dedicated to galaxy surveys. It is even difficult to offer a complete overview of the enormous number of galaxy surveys today available and/or ongoing. We interviewed scientists asking them to present the most significant surveys, in their view, in their area of scientific interest and emphasized the main results obtained by the surveys that have seen their active collaboration. Before entering the core of such discussion George Paturel will provide us in Section 5.2 a much clear idea of the efforts that are necessary to build a good galaxy catalogue and to homogenize the entries in a database. The information about the single galaxies are indeed so wide that a new concept of data managing has been developed: the Virtual Observatory (see Section 9.9). Since the beginning of the astronomical use of photographic techniques, big plates archives are preserved basically in all observatories. Thanks to their large field of view and easy storability, astronomers often re-used this patrimony over the time, e.g. to follow time variable phenomena or to inspect several different objects in the field of view of the plates. Along this line Virtual Observatories have been conceived for providing an easy retrieval of the multiple types of data available for individual objects. In Section 5.3 Alessandro Boselli and Laura Ferrarese will characterize the galaxy environments that are coming out from the various sky surveys, dealing in particular with the Virgo and Fornax clusters, our closer biggest associations of galaxies. Then, in Section 5.3.1 Bianca Poggianti will draw the picture emerging from WINGS, the WIde field Galaxy cluster Survey, dedicated to the study of the nearby (z < 0.07) galaxy clusters. Nils Bergvall (Section 5.3.2) and Valentina Karachentseva (Section 5.3.2) will present the properties of galaxies inhabiting the low density environments up to isolation. Martha Haynes and Riccardo Giovanelli will discuss the HI surveys in Section 5.4 and related subsections. Luciana Bianchi will introduce the UV surveys, with a particular emphasis for the results obtained by GALEX in Section 5.5.1. The most important IR and X ray surveys will be discussed by Alessandro Boselli and Ginevra Trinchieri respectively in Section 5.5.2 and 5.5.3. Finally, in Section 5.6 Jonathan Bland-Hawthorn and Bianca Poggianti will give a panoramic sketch of the main spectroscopic surveys.

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 sigma or X-ray luminosity L_X. Interestingly, convincing cases of candidates are also found in groups and lower mass haloes (10^{11}-10^{14} M_{sun}), although the physical mechanism at work needs to be securely identified. All the candidates are disky, have stellar masses ranging from log M/M_{sun} < 9 to > 11.5 and the majority of them form stars at a rate that is on average a factor of 2 higher (2.5 sigma) compared to non-stripped galaxies of similar mass. The few post-starburst and passive candidates have weak stripping evidence. We conclude that the stripping phenomenon is ubiquitous in clusters and could be present even in groups and low mass haloes. Further studies will reveal the physics of the gas stripping and clarify the mechanisms at work., revised version including referee comments

We reexamine the systematic properties of local galaxy populations, using published surveys of star formation, structure, and gas content. After recalibrating star formation measures, we are able to reliably measure specific star formation rates well below the "main sequence" of star formation vs mass. We find an unexpectedly large population of galaxies with star formation rates intermediate between vigorously star-forming main sequence galaxies and passive galaxies, and with gas content disproportionately high for their star formation rates. Several lines of evidence suggest that these quiescent galaxies form a distinct population rather than a low star formation tail of the main sequence. We demonstrate that a tight main sequence, evolving with epoch, is a natural outcome of most histories of star formation and has little astrophysical significance, but that the quiescent population requires additional astrophysics to explain its properties. Using a simple model for disk evolution based on the observed dependence of star formation on gas content in local galaxies, and assuming simple histories of cold gas inflow, we show that the evolution of galaxies away from the main sequence can be attributed to the depletion of gas due to star formation after a cutoff in gas inflow. The quiescent population is composed of galaxies in which the density of disk gas has fallen below a threshold for disk stability. The evolution of galaxies beyond the quiescent state to gas exhaustion requires another process, probably wind-driven mass loss. The SSFR distribution of the quiescent and passive implies that the timescale of this process must be greater than a few Gyrs but less than a few tens of Gyrs. The environmental dependence of the galaxy populations is consistent with recent theory suggesting that cold gas inflows into galaxies are truncated at earlier times in denser environments., Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures, submitted to ApJ Figure 3 replaced with correct file

Some contributions in Chap. 1 have highlighted the impact of the discovery in the 1960s of a handful of radio galaxies and Quasars in the redshift range z ∼ 0.2–0.4. About 40 years later, at the end of the twentieth Century, the systematic exploration of galaxies reached z ∼ 1–3. The combination of HST deep imaging and the coming into operation of the 8–10 m class telescopes with their spectroscopic capabilities, move ahead the limits. At the same time, astronomers greatly improved their strategies to hunt high-redshift galaxies. Today, it is not infrequent the spectroscopic confirmation of galaxies at z ∼ 7–8, pushing the detection limits more or less to the end of the re-ionization era. The gauntlet to observe the so called “first galaxies”, i.e. those assembling during the first billion years of the cosmic time, is throw down.

An understanding of the mass build-up in galaxies over time necessitates tracing the evolution of cold gas (molecular and atomic) in galaxies. To that end, we have conducted a pilot study called CO Observations with the LMT of the Blind Ultra-Deep H I Environment Survey (COOL BUDHIES). We have observed 23 galaxies in and around the two clusters Abell 2192 (z = 0.188) and Abell 963 (z = 0.206), where 12 are cluster members and 11 are slightly in the foreground or background, using about 28 total hours on the Redshift Search Receiver (RSR) on the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) to measure the $^{12}$CO J = 1 --> 0 emission line and obtain molecular gas masses. These new observations provide a unique opportunity to probe both the molecular and atomic components of galaxies as a function of environment beyond the local Universe. For our sample of 23 galaxies, nine have reliable detections (S/N$\geq$3.6) of the $^{12}$CO line, and another six have marginal detections (2.0 < S/N < 3.6). For the remaining eight targets we can place upper limits on molecular gas masses roughly between $10^9$ and $10^{10} M_\odot$. Comparing our results to other studies of molecular gas, we find that our sample is significantly more abundant in molecular gas overall, when compared to the stellar and the atomic gas component, and our median molecular gas fraction lies about $1��$ above the upper limits of proposed redshift evolution in earlier studies. We discuss possible reasons for this discrepancy, with the most likely conclusion being target selection and Eddington bias., MNRAS, submitted

Using deep Hubble Frontier Fields imaging and slitless spectroscopy from the Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space, we analyze 2200 cluster and 1748 field galaxies at $0.2\leq z\leq0.7$ to determine the impact of environment on galaxy size and structure at $\log M_*/M_\odot>7.8$, an unprecedented limit at these redshifts. Based on simple assumptions-$r_e=f(M_*)$-we find no significant differences in half-light radii ($r_e$) between equal-mass cluster or field systems. More complex analyses-$r_e=f(M_*,U-V,n,z,\Sigma$)-reveal local density $(\Sigma$) to induce only a $7\% \pm 3\%$ ($95\%$ confidence) reduction in $r_e$ beyond what can be accounted for by $U-V$ color, Sersic index ($n$), and redshift ($z$) effects.Almost any size difference between galaxies in high- and low-density regions is thus attributable to their different distributions in properties other than environment. Indeed, we find a clear color-$r_e$ correlation in low-mass passive cluster galaxies ($\log M_*/M_\odot, Comment: The accepted version. The catalog is available through the GLASS web page (http://glass.astro.ucla.edu), or https://www.astr.tohoku.ac.jp/~mtakahiro/Publication/Morishita17/

WINGS is a wide-field multi-wavelength survey of 76 X-ray selected clusters at low redshift. The WINGS database has been used for a variety of cluster and cluster galaxy studies, investigating galaxy star formation, morphologies, structure, stellar mass functions and other properties. We present the recent wider-field extension of WINGS, OMEGAWINGS, conducted with OmegaCAM@VST and AAOmega@AAT. We show two of our latest results regarding jellyfish galaxies and galaxy sizes. OMEGAWINGS has allowed the first systematic search of galaxies with signs of ongoing ram pressure stripping (jellyfishes), yielding a catalog of \(\sim\) 240 galaxies in 41 clusters. We discuss the first results obtained from this sample and the prospects for integral field data. Finally, we summarize our results regarding the discovery of compact massive galaxies at low redshift, their properties, dependence on environment and the implications for the evolution of galaxy sizes from high- to low-z.

The star formation quenching depends on environment, but a full understanding of what mechanisms drive it is still missing. Exploiting a sample of galaxies with masses $M_\ast>10^{9.8}M_\odot$, drawn from the WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (WINGS) and its recent extension OMEGAWINGS, we investigate the star formation rate (SFR) as a function of stellar mass (M$_*$) in galaxy clusters at $0.04, Comment: ApJ Letter accepted

We present the results of our X-shooter observations for a sample of dwarf (-17 < MB < -15) galaxies in nearby (0. 040 < z < 0. 068) galaxy clusters of the WINGS sample. The study of galaxies in this faint luminosity range is fundamental to trace the evolution of high-z star-forming cluster galaxies down to the present day. We measure the velocity dispersion of 22 galaxies in this range of luminosity and we explore their scaling relations. We found that the Fundamental Plane has a peculiar feature, suggesting the existence of some kind of warping at low luminosities.

We present coarse but robust star formation histories (SFHs) derived from spectro-photometric data of the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS Survey, for 22,494 galaxies at 0.3, Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures; accepted by ApJ; version 2 - no substantive changes; clarifications and corrections

We use publicly available galaxy merger trees, obtained applying semi-analytic techniques to a large high-resolution cosmological simulation, to study the environmental history of group and cluster galaxies. Our results highlight the existence of an intrinsic history bias which makes the nature versus nurture (as well as the mass versus environment) debate inherently ill posed. In particular, we show that (i) surviving massive satellites were accreted later than their less massive counterparts, from more massive haloes and (ii) the mixing of galaxy populations is incomplete during halo assembly, which creates a correlation between the time a galaxy becomes satellite and its present distance from the parent halo centre. The weakest trends are found for the most massive satellites, as a result of efficient dynamical friction and late formation times of massive haloes. A large fraction of the most massive group/cluster members are accreted on to the main progenitor of the final halo as central galaxies, while about half of the galaxies with low and intermediate stellar masses are accreted as satellites. Large fractions of group and cluster galaxies (in particular those of low stellar mass) have therefore been ‘pre-processed’ as satellites of groups with mass ∼1013 M⊙. To quantify the relevance of hierarchical structure growth on the observed environmental trends, we have considered observational estimates of the passive galaxy fractions and their variation as a function of halo mass and clustercentric distance. Comparisons with our theoretical predictions require relatively long times (∼5–7 Gyr) for the suppression of star formation in group and cluster satellites. It is unclear how such a gentle mode of strangulation can be achieved by simply relaxing the assumption of instantaneous stripping of the hot gas reservoir associated with accreting galaxies, or if the difficulties encountered by recent galaxy formation models in reproducing the observed trends signal a more fundamental problem with the treatment of star formation and feedback in these galaxies.

We present the morphological catalog of galaxies in nearby clusters of the WINGS survey (Fasano et al. 2006). The catalog contains a total number of 39923 galaxies, for which we provide the automatic estimates of the morphological type applying the purposely devised tool MORPHOT to the V-band WINGS imaging. For ~3000 galaxies we also provide visual estimates of the morphological types. A substantial part of the paper is devoted to the description of the MORPHOT tool, whose application is limited, at least for the moment, to the WINGS imaging only. The approach of the tool to the automation of morphological classification is a non parametric and fully empiri- cal one. In particular, MORPHOT exploits 21 morphological diagnostics, directly and easily computable from the galaxy image, to provide two independent classifications: one based on a Maximum Likelihood (ML), semi-analytical technique, the other one on a Neural Network (NN) machine. A suitably selected sample of ~1000 visually clas- sified WINGS galaxies is used to calibrate the diagnostics for the ML estimator and as a training set in the NN machine. The final morphological estimator combines the two techniques and proves to be effective both when applied to an additional test sample of ~1000 visually classified WINGS galaxies and when compared with small samples of SDSS galaxies visually classified by Fukugita et al. (2007) and Nair et al. (2010). Finally, besides the galaxy morphology distribution (corrected for field contamination) in the WINGS clusters, we present the ellipticity ({\epsilon}), color (B-V) and Sersic index (n) distributions for different morphological types, as well as the morphological fractions as a function of the clustercentric distance (in units of R200).

Exploiting the capabilities of four different surveys --- the Padova-Millennium Galaxy and Group Catalogue (PM2GC), the WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (WINGS), the IMACS Cluster Building Survey (ICBS) and the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS) --- we analyze the galaxy stellar mass distribution as a function of local density in mass-limited samples, in the field and in clusters from low (z>0.04) to high (z

We use \sim 2000 galaxies belonging to different environments to show how the fractions of different galaxy morphological types vary with global environment and as function of galaxy stellar mass at low redshift. Considering mass limited galaxy samples with log10 M\star/M\bigodot>= 10.25, we find a smooth increase/decline in the fraction of Es-S0s/late type galaxies going from single galaxies, to binaries, to groups. Considering all environments, the fractional variation is more conspicuous for S0s and late-types than for ellipticals solely due to a sharp enhancement/dearth of S0s/late-types in clusters compared to other environments. The morphological distribution of galaxies in the mass range 10.25 < log10 M\star/M\bigodot < 11 is rather independent both of galaxy stellar mass and global environment, except in clusters. The morphologies of galaxies more massive than log10 M\star/M\bigodot = 11 are instead a function of both galaxy mass and global environment. The morphology-mass relation therefore changes with global environment, showing that galaxy stellar mass cannot be the only parameter driving the morphological distribution of galaxies. The morphology-mass relations for S0 and late-type galaxies in clusters are peculiar compared to other environments, and this strongly suggests that cluster-specific effects act on these two types of galaxies, and that a significant number of S0s in clusters has a different origin with respect to S0s in other environments.

With the aim of distinguishing between possible physical mechanisms acting on galaxies when they fall into clusters, we study the properties of the gas and the stars in a sample of 422 emission-line galaxies from EDisCS in different environments up to z~1. We identify galaxies with kinematical disturbances (from emission-lines in their 2D spectra) and find that they are more frequent in clusters than in the field. The fraction of kinematically-disturbed galaxies increases with cluster velocity dispersion and decreases with distance from the cluster centre, but remains constant with projected galaxy density. We also studied morphological disturbances in the stellar light from HST/F814W images, finding that the fraction of morphologically disturbed galaxies is similar in all environments. Moreover, there is little correlation between the presence of kinematically-disturbed gas and morphological distortions. We also study the dependence of the Tully-Fisher relation, star formation, and extent of the emission on environment, and conclude that the gas disks in cluster galaxies have been truncated, and therefore their star formation is more concentrated than in low-density environments. If spirals transform into S0s, our findings imply that the physical mechanism transforming cluster galaxies efficiently disturbs the star-forming gas and reduces their specific star formation rate. Moreover, this star-forming gas is either removed more efficiently from the outskirts of the galaxies or is driven towards the centre (or both), helping to build the bulges of S0s. These results, in addition to the finding that the transformation mechanism does not seem to induce strong morphological disturbances on the galaxies, suggest that the physical processes involved are related to the intracluster medium, with galaxy-galaxy interactions playing only a limited role in clusters.

Equivalent widths of spectral lines in the optical spectra of galaxies are commonly used to characterize their stellar populations and to get some insight on their evolution. Here we describe a new method to measure automatically equivalent widths of spectral lines with a good accuracy. This makes possible to classify galaxies according to the presence/absence and intensity of [O II] and Hδ lines. Based on these classification criteria, we give a description of the characteristics of the star-forming and post-starburst galaxies in local clusters, and their dependence on the cluster characteristics.

We present the galaxy stellar mass function (MF) and its evolution in clusters from z~0.8 to the current epoch, based on the WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (WINGS) (0.04 10^11 M' does not evolve, but below M*~10^10.8 M' the MF at high redshift is flat, while in the Local Universe it flattens out at lower masses. The population of M* = 10^10.2 - 10^10.8 M' galaxies must have grown significantly between z=0.8 and z=0. We analyze the MF of different morphological types (ellipticals, S0s and late-types), and find that also each of them evolves with redshift. All types have proportionally more massive galaxies at high- than at low-z, and the strongest evolution occurs among S0 galaxies. Examining the morphology-mass relation (the way the proportion of galaxies of different morphological types changes with galaxy mass), we find it strongly depends on redshift. At both redshifts, ~40% of the stellar mass is in elliptical galaxies. Another ~43% of the mass is in S0 galaxies in local clusters, while it is in spirals in distant clusters. To explain the observed trends, we discuss the importance of those mechanisms that could shape the MF. We conclude that mass growth due to star formation plays a crucial role in driving the evolution. It has to be accompanied by infall of galaxies onto clusters, and the mass distribution of infalling galaxies might be different from that of cluster galaxies. However, comparing with high-z field samples, we do not find conclusive evidence for such an environmental mass segregation. Our results suggest that star formation and infall change directly the MF of late-type galaxies in clusters and, indirectly, that of early-type galaxies through subsequent morphological transformations.

We present the ellipticity distribution and its evolution for early-type galaxies in clusters from z~0.8 to z~0, based on the WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (WINGS)(0.04 M_B+1.208z>-21. Analyzing this sample, we do not recover exactly the same results of the mass-limited sample. Hence the selection criteria are crucial to characterize the galaxy properties: the choice of the magnitude-delimited sample implies the loss of many less massive galaxies and so it biases the final results. Moreover, although we are adopting the same selection criteria, our results in the magnitude-delimited sample are also not in agreement with those of Holden et al.(2009). This is due to the fact that our and their low-z samples have a different magnitude distribution because the Holden et al.(2009) sample suffers from incompleteness at faint magnitudes.

The fraction of galaxies bound in groups in the nearby Universe is high (50% at z~0). Systematic studies of galaxy properties in groups are important in order to improve our understanding of the evolution of galaxies and of the physical phenomena occurring within this environment. We have built a complete spectrophotometric sample of galaxies within X-ray detected, optically spectroscopically confirmed groups and clusters (G&C), covering a wide range of halo masses at z, 20 pages, 18 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in A&A

The aim of this paper is the spectroscopic study of 13 galaxies belonging to the field of the protocluster associated with the radio galaxy (RG) 7C 1756+6520 at z = 1.4156. In particular, we focus on the characterization of the nuclear activity. This analysis has been performed on rest-frame optical spectra taken with LBT-LUCI. The spectral coverage allowed us to observe emission lines such as Halpha, Hbeta, [Oiii]5007 A, and [Nii]6583 A at the z of the central RG. We observed the central part of the protocluster, which is suitable to include the radio galaxy, several spectroscopically confirmed AGN belonging to the protocluster, and other objects that might be members of the protocluster. For four previously identified protocluster members, we derived the redshift by detecting emission lines that have never detected before for these galaxies. The stacked spectrum of the galaxies in which we detected the [Oiii]5007 A emission line revealed the presence of the second line of the [Oiii] doublet at 4959 A and of Hbeta, which confirms that they belong to the protocluster. By collecting all members identified so far in this work and other members from the literature, we defined 31 galaxies, including the central RG, around z = 1.4152 +/- 0.056, corresponding to peculiar velocities, Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 17 pages, 8 Figures, 2 Tables. Revised version

Massive quiescent galaxies at z>1 have been found to have small physical sizes, 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 =1.61+/-0.29kpc, a median Sersic index = 3.0+/-0.6, and very old stellar populations with a median mass-weighted age of 12.1+/-1.3Gyr. We calculate a number density of 2.9x10^-2Mpc^-3 for superdense galaxies in local clusters, and a hard lower limit of 1.3x10^-5Mpc^-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*>4x10^11Msol compared to similarly massive galaxies in WINGS, i.e. the BCGs., Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables, accepted for pubblication in ApJ

We present the star formation rate (SFR) and starburst fraction (SBF) for a sample of field galaxies from the ICBS intermediate-redshift cluster survey. We use [O II] and Spitzer 24 micron fluxes to measure SFRs, and 24 micron fluxes and H-delta absorption to measure of SBFs, for both our sample and a present-epoch field sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Spitzer Wide-area Infrared Extragalactic (SWIRE) survey. We find a precipitous decline in the SFR since z=1, in agreement with other studies, as well as a corresponding rapid decline in the fraction of galaxies undergoing long-duration moderate-amplitude starbursts. We suggest that the change in both the rate and mode of star formation could result from the strong decrease since z=1 of gas available for star formation., ApJ Letters in press

We quantify the evolution of the spiral, S0 and elliptical fractions in galaxy clusters as a function of cluster velocity dispersion ($\sigma$) and X-ray luminosity ($L_X$) using a new database of 72 nearby clusters from the WIde-Field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (WINGS) combined with literature data at $z=0.5-1.2$. Most WINGS clusters have $\sigma$ between 500 and 1100 $\rm km s^{-1}$, and $L_X$ between 0.2 and $5 \times 10^{44} \rm erg/s$. The S0 fraction in clusters is known to increase with time at the expense of the spiral population. We find that the spiral and S0 fractions have evolved more strongly in lower $\sigma$, less massive clusters, while we confirm that the proportion of ellipticals has remained unchanged. Our results demonstrate that morphological evolution since $z=1$ is not confined to massive clusters, but is actually more pronounced in low mass clusters, and therefore must originate either from secular (intrinsic) evolution and/or from environmental mechanisms that act preferentially in low-mass environments, or both in low- and high-mass systems. We also find that the evolution of the spiral fraction perfectly mirrors the evolution of the fraction of star-forming galaxies. Interestingly, at low-z the spiral fraction anticorrelates with $L_X$. Conversely, no correlation is observed with $\sigma$. Given that both $\sigma$ and $L_X$ are tracers of the cluster mass, these results pose a challenge for current scenarios of morphological evolution in clusters., Comment: ApJ Letters in press - This version has a revised division between ellipticals and S0s, that leads to slightly higher S0 and lower elliptical fractions

Post-starburst (E+A or k+a) spectra, characterized by their exceptionally strong Balmer lines in absorption and the lack of emission lines, belong to galaxies in which the star formation activity ended abruptly sometime during the past Gyr. We perform a spectral analysis of galaxies in clusters, groups, poor groups and the field at z=0.4-0.8 based on the ESO Distant Cluster Survey. The incidence of k+a's at these redshifts depends strongly on environment. K+a's reside preferentially in clusters and, unexpectedly, in a subset of the sigma = 200-400 km/s groups, those that have a low fraction of [OII] emitters. In these environments, 20-30% of the recently star-forming galaxies have had their star formation activity recently truncated. In contrast, there are proportionally fewer k+a's in the field, the poor groups and groups with a high [OII] fraction. The incidence of k+a galaxies correlates with the cluster velocity dispersion: more massive clusters have higher proportions of k+a's. Spectra of dusty starburst candidates, with strong Balmer absorption and emission lines, present a very different environmental dependence from k+a's. They are numerous in all environments at z=0.4-0.8, but they are especially numerous in all types of groups, favoring the hypothesis of triggering by a merger. Our observations are consistent with previous suggestions that cluster k+a galaxies are observed in a transition phase as massive S0 and Sa galaxies, evolving from star-forming later types to passively evolving early-type galaxies. The correlation between k+a fraction and cluster sigma supports the hypothesis that k+a galaxies in clusters originate from processes related to the intracluster medium, while several possibilities are discussed for the origin of the k+a frequency in low-[OII] groups.(abr.), Comment: accepted for publication in ApJ

We describe the HST ACS Coma Cluster Treasury survey, a deep two-passband imaging survey of one of the nearest rich clusters of galaxies, the Coma Cluster (Abell 1656). The survey was designed to cover an area of 740 arcmin2 in regions of different density of both galaxies and intergalactic medium within the cluster. The ACS failure of 2007 January 27 leaves the survey 28% complete, with 21 ACS pointings (230 arcmin2) complete, and partial data for a further four pointings (44 arcmin2). The predicted survey depth for 10 σ detections for optimal photometry of point sources is g'=27.6 in the F475W filter and IC=26.8 mag in F814 (AB magnitudes). Initial simulations with artificially injected point sources show 90% recovered at magnitude limits of g'=27.55 and IC=26.65. For extended sources, the predicted 10 σ limits for a 1 arcsec2 region are g'=25.8 mag arcsec-2 and IC=25.0 mag arcsec-2. We highlight several motivating science goals of the survey, including study of the faint end of the cluster galaxy luminosity function, structural parameters of dwarf galaxies, stellar populations and their effect on colors and color gradients, evolution of morphological components in a dense environment, the nature of ultracompact dwarf galaxies, and globular cluster populations of cluster galaxies of a range of luminosities and types. This survey will also provide a local rich cluster benchmark for various well-known global scaling relations and explore new relations pertaining to the nuclear properties of galaxies. Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. These observations are associated with program GO10861.

A pilot study with the powerful new backend of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) of two galaxy clusters at z=0.2 has revealed neutral hydrogen emission from 42 galaxies. The WSRT probes a total combined volume of 3.4x10^4 Mpc^3 at resolutions of 54x86 kpc^2 and 19.7 km/s, surveying both clusters and the large scale structure in which they are embedded. In Abell 963, a dynamically relaxed, lensing Butcher-Oemler cluster with a high blue fraction, most of the gas-rich galaxies are located between 1 and 3 Mpc in projection, northeast from the cluster core. Their velocities are slightly redshifted with respect to the cluster, and this is likely a background group. None of the blue galaxies in the core of Abell 963 are detected in HI, although they have similar colors and luminosities as the HI detected galaxies in the cluster outskirts and field. Abell 2192 is less massive and more diffuse. Here, the gas-rich galaxies are more uniformly distributed. The detected HI masses range from 5x10^9 to 4x10^10 Msun. Some galaxies are spatially resolved, providing rudimentary rotation curves useful for detailed kinematic studies of galaxies in various environments. This is a pilot for ultra-deep integrations down to HI masses of 8x10^8 Msun, providing a complete survey of the gas content of galaxies at z=0.2, probing environments ranging from cluster cores to voids., 5 pages, 6 figures + 1 Plate, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters

We search for and characterize substructures in the projected distribution of galaxies observed in the wide field CCD images of the 77 nearby clusters of the WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (WINGS). This sample is complete in X-ray flux in the redshift range 0.04, Comment: A&A accepted - figure 6 is available from http://adlibitum.oats.inaf.it/ramella/WINGSfigs

A pilot study with the powerful new backend of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) of two galaxy clusters at z=0.2 has revealed neutral hydrogen emission from 39 galaxies. The volume probed for each cluster is 1.7x10^4 Mpc^3, with spatial and velocity resolutions of 54x86 kpc^2 and 19.7 km/s, covering both clusters and the large scale structure in which they are embedded. The spatial distribution of the HI detected galaxies is very different for the two clusters. In Abell 963, most of the gas-rich galaxies are located to the northeast, at 1-3 Mpc from the cluster center in projection. Their velocities are slightly redshifted with respect to the cluster mean. This could be a gas-rich group falling in from the front. Abell 2192 is less massive and more diffuse, with the gas rich galaxies more uniformly spread over a large region around the cluster. The HI masses of the detected galaxies range from 5x10^9 to 4x10^10 Msun. Some HI-rich galaxies are spatially resolved and rudimentary rotation curves are derived, showing the prospect for Tully-Fisher studies of different galaxy populations in these environments. Only one galaxy is detected within a 1 Mpc radius from the center of the Butcher-Oemler cluster Abell 963, and none of the blue B-O galaxies which are all located within the central Mpc. The HI detected galaxies outside the central Mpc are of similar colour and magnitude as the non-detected B-O galaxies, indicating that the blue B-O galaxies are gas-poor compared to their counterparts in the field., 7 pages, 4 figures. to appear in the New Astronomy Review proceedings of "The Fate of Gas in Galaxies", held in Dwingeloo, July 2006

Using galaxy clusters from the ESO Distant Cluster Survey, we study how the distribution of galaxies along the colour-magnitude relation has evolved since z~0.8. While red-sequence galaxies in all these clusters are well described by an old, passively evolving population, we confirm our previous finding of a significant evolution in their luminosity distribution as a function of redshift. When compared to galaxy clusters in the local Universe, the high redshift EDisCS clusters exhibit a significant "deficit" of faint red galaxies. Combining clusters in three different redshift bins, and defining as `faint' all galaxies in the range 0.4 > L/L* > 0.1, we find a clear decrease in the luminous-to-faint ratio of red galaxies from z~0.8 to z~0.4. The amount of such a decrease appears to be in qualitative agreement with predictions of a model where the blue bright galaxies that populate the colour-magnitude diagram of high redshift clusters, have their star formation suppressed by the hostile cluster environment. Although model results need to be interpreted with caution, our findings clearly indicate that the red-sequence population of high-redshift clusters does not contain all progenitors of nearby red-sequence cluster galaxies. A significant fraction of these must have moved onto the red-sequence below z~0.8., 15 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We give an overview of the Grism Lens Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS), a large Hubble Space Telescope program aimed at obtaining grism spectroscopy of the fields of ten massive clusters of galaxies at redshift z=0.308-0.686, including the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF). The Wide Field Camera 3 yields near infrared spectra of the cluster cores, covering the wavelength range 0.81-1.69mum through grisms G102 and G141, while the Advanced Camera for Surveys in parallel mode provides G800L spectra of the infall regions of the clusters. The WFC3 spectra are taken at two almost orthogonal position angles in order to minimize the effects of confusion. After summarizing the scientific drivers of GLASS, we describe the sample selection as well as the observing strategy and data processing pipeline. We then utilize MACSJ0717.5+3745, a HFF cluster and the first one observed by GLASS, to illustrate the data quality and the high-level data products. Each spectrum brighter than H_AB=23 is visually inspected by at least two co-authors and a redshift is measured when sufficient information is present in the spectra. Furthermore, we conducted a thorough search for emission lines through all the GLASS WFC3 spectra with the aim of measuring redshifts for sources with continuum fainter than H_AB=23. We provide a catalog of 139 emission-line based spectroscopic redshifts for extragalactic sources, including three new redshifts of multiple image systems (one probable, two tentative). In addition to the data itself we also release software tools that are helpful to navigate the data., ApJ in press. GLASS data available at https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/glass/ . More info on GLASS available at http://glass.physics.ucsb.edu/

We analyze the star formation history (SFH) of galaxies as a function of present-day environment, galaxy stellar mass and morphology. The SFH is derived by means of a non-parametric spectrophotometric model applied to individual galaxies at z ~ 0.04- 0.1 in the WINGS clusters and the PM2GC field. The field reconstructed evolution of the star formation rate density (SFRD) follows the values observed at each redshift (Madau & Dickinson 2014), except at z > 2 where our estimate is ~ 1.7x higher than the high-z observed value. The slope of the SFRD decline with time gets progressively steeper going from low mass to high mass haloes. The decrease of the SFRD since z = 2 is due to 1) quenching - 50% of the SFRD in the field and 75% in clusters at z > 2 originated in galaxies that are passive today - and 2) the fact that the average SFR of today's star-forming galaxies has decreased with time. We quantify the contribution to the SFRD(z) of galaxies of today's different masses and morphologies. The current morphology correlates with the current star formation activity but is irrelevant for the past stellar history. The average SFH depends on galaxy mass, but galaxies of a given mass have different histories depending on their environment. We conclude that the variation of the SFRD(z) with environment is not driven by different distributions of galaxy masses and morphologies in clusters and field, and must be due to an accelerated formation in high mass haloes compared to low mass ones even for galaxies that will end up having the same galaxy mass today., 16 pages, 10 figures. Published on MNRAS

We investigate the effect of ram-pressure from the intracluster medium on the stripping of HI gas in galaxies in a massive, relaxed, X-ray bright, galaxy cluster at z=0.2 from the Blind Ultra Deep HI Environmental Survey (BUDHIES). We use cosmological simulations, and velocity vs. position phase-space diagrams to infer the orbital histories of the cluster galaxies. In particular, we embed a simple analytical description of ram-pressure stripping in the simulations to identify the regions in phase-space where galaxies are more likely to have been sufficiently stripped of their HI gas to fall below the detection limit of our survey. We find a striking agreement between the model predictions and the observed location of HI-detected and non-detected blue (late-type) galaxies in phase-space, strongly implying that ram-pressure plays a key role in the gas removal from galaxies, and that this can happen during their first infall into the cluster. However, we also find a significant number of gas-poor, red (early-type) galaxies in the infall region of the cluster that cannot easily be explained with our model of ram-pressure stripping alone. We discuss different possible additional mechanisms that could be at play, including the pre-processing of galaxies in their previous environment. Our results are strengthened by the distribution of galaxy colours (optical and UV) in phase-space, that suggests that after a (gas-rich) field galaxy falls into the cluster, it will lose its gas via ram-pressure stripping, and as it settles into the cluster, its star formation will decay until it is completely quenched. Finally, this work demonstrates the utility of phase-space diagrams to analyze the physical processes driving the evolution of cluster galaxies, in particular HI gas stripping., Accepted for publication by MNRAS; 16 pages and 10 Figures (including Appendix)

The Wide-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (WINGS) is a wide-field multi-wavelength survey of X-ray selected clusters at z =0.04-0.07. The original 34'x34' WINGS field-of- view has now been extended to cover a 1 sq.deg field with both photometry and spectroscopy. In this paper we present the Johnson B and V-band OmegaCAM/VST observations of 46 WINGS clusters, together with the data reduction, data quality and Sextractor photometric catalogs. With a median seeing of 1arcs in both bands, our 25-minutes exposures in each band typically reach the 50% completeness level at V=23.1 mag. The quality of the astrometric and photometric accuracy has been verified by comparison with the 2MASS as well as with SDSS astrometry, and SDSS and previous WINGS imaging. Star/galaxy separation and sky-subtraction procedure have been tested comparing with previous WINGS data. The Sextractor photometric catalogues are publicly available at the CDS, and will be included in the next release of the WINGS database on the VO together with the OmegaCAM reduced images. These data form the basis for a large ongoing spectroscopic campaign with AAOmega/AAT and is being employed for a variety of studies. [abridged], Comment: submitted to A&A

Using V band photometry of the WINGS survey, we derive galaxy luminosity functions (LF) in nearby clusters. This sample is complete down to Mv=-15.15, and it is homogeneous, thus allowing the study of an unbiased sample of clusters with different characteristics. We constructed the photometric LF for 72 out of the original 76 WINGS clusters, excluding only those without a velocity dispersion estimate. For each cluster we obtained the LF for galaxies in a region of radius=0.5 x r200, and fitted them with single and double Schechter's functions. We also derive the composite LF for the entire sample, and those pertaining to different morphological classes. Finally we derive the spectroscopic cumulative LF for 2009 galaxies that are cluster members. The double Schechter fit parameters are neither correlated with the cluster velocity dispersion, nor with the X-ray luminosity. Our median values of the Schechter's fit slope are, on average, in agreement with measurements of nearby clusters, but are less steep that those derived from large surveys, such as the SDSS. Early--type galaxies outnumber late-types at all magnitudes, but both early and late types contribute equally to the faint end of the LF. Finally, the spectroscopic LF is in excellent agreement with the ones derived for A2199, A85 and Virgo, and with the photometric one at the bright magnitudes (where both are available). There is a large spread in the LF of different clusters. However, this spread is not caused by correlation of the LF shape with cluster characteristics such as X--ray luminosity or velocity dispersions. The faint end is flatter than what previously derived (alpha_f=-1.7) at odds with what predicted from numerical simulations., Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

The cores of clusters at 0 $\lesssim$ z $\lesssim$ 1 are dominated by quiescent early-type galaxies, whereas the field is dominated by star-forming late-type ones. Galaxy properties, notably the star formation (SF) ability, are altered as they fall into overdense regions. The critical issues to understand this evolution are how the truncation of SF is connected to the morphological transformation and the responsible physical mechanism. The GaLAxy Cluster Evolution Survey (GLACE) is conducting a study on the variation of galaxy properties (SF, AGN, morphology) as a function of environment in a representative sample of clusters. A deep survey of emission line galaxies (ELG) is being performed, mapping a set of optical lines ([OII], [OIII], H$\beta$ and H$\alpha$/[NII]) in several clusters at z $\sim$ 0.40, 0.63 and 0.86. Using the Tunable Filters (TF) of OSIRIS/GTC, GLACE applies the technique of TF tomography: for each line, a set of images at different wavelengths are taken through the TF, to cover a rest frame velocity range of several thousands km/s. The first GLACE results target the H$\alpha$/[NII] lines in the cluster ZwCl 0024.0+1652 at z = 0.395 covering $\sim$ 2 $\times$ r$_{vir}$. We discuss the techniques devised to process the TF tomography observations to generate the catalogue of H$\alpha$ emitters of 174 unique cluster sources down to a SFR below 1 M$_{\odot}$/yr. The AGN population is discriminated using different diagnostics and found to be $\sim$ 37% of the ELG population. The median SFR is 1.4 M$_{\odot}$/yr. We have studied the spatial distribution of ELG, confirming the existence of two components in the redshift space. Finally, we have exploited the outstanding spectral resolution of the TF to estimate the cluster mass from ELG dynamics, finding M$_{200}$ = 4.1 $\times$ 10$^{14}$ M$_{\odot} h^{-1}$, in agreement with previous weak-lensing estimates., Comment: 23 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in A&A. Astro-ph abstract abridged

In order to assess whether the environment has a significant effect on galaxy sizes, we compare the mass--size relations of cluster and field galaxies in the $0.4 < z < 0.8$ redshift range from the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS) using HST images. We analyse two mass-selected samples, one defined using photometric redshifts ($10.2 \le \log M_\ast/M_{\odot} \le 12.0$), and a smaller more robust subsample using spectroscopic redshifts ($10.6 \le \log M_\ast/M_{\odot} \le 11.8$). We find no significant difference in the size distributions of cluster and field galaxies of a given morphology. Similarly, we find no significant difference in the size distributions of cluster and field galaxies of similar rest-frame $B-V$ colours. We rule out average size differences larger than $10$--$20$\% in both cases. Consistent conclusions are found with the spectroscopic and photometric samples. These results have important consequences for the physical process(es) responsible for the size evolution of galaxies, and in particular the effect of the environment. The remarkable growth in galaxy size observed from $z\sim2.5$ has been reported to depend on the environment at higher redshifts ($z>1$), with early-type/passive galaxies in higher density environments growing earlier. Such dependence disappears at lower redshifts. Therefore, if the reported difference at higher-$z$ is real, the growth of field galaxies has caught up with that of cluster galaxies by $z\sim1$. Any putative mechanism responsible for galaxy growth has to account for the existence of environmental differences at high redshift and their absence (or weakening) at lower redshifts., 11 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We have performed a pilot Chandra survey of an off-center region of the Coma cluster to explore the X-ray properties and Luminosity Function of normal galaxies. We present results on 13 Chandra-detected galaxies with optical photometric matches, including four spectroscopically-confirmed Coma-member galaxies. All seven spectroscopically confirmed giant Coma galaxies in this field have detections or limits consistent with low X-ray to optical flux ratios (fX/fR < 10^-3). We do not have sufficient numbers of X-ray detected galaxies to directly measure the galaxy X-ray Luminosity Function (XLF). However, since we have a well-measured optical LF, we take this low X-ray to optical flux ratio for the 7 spectroscopically confirmed galaxies to translate the optical LF to an XLF. We find good agreement with Finoguenov et al. (2004), indicating that the X-ray emission per unit optical flux per galaxy is suppressed in clusters of galaxies, but extends this work to a specific off-center environment in the Coma cluster. Finally, we report the discovery of a region of diffuse X-ray flux which might correspond to a small group interacting with the Coma Intra-Cluster Medium (ICM)., Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

This is the first paper of a series that will present data and scientific results from the WINGS project, a wide-field, multiwavelength imaging and spectroscopic survey of galaxies in 77 nearby clusters. The sample was extracted from the ROSAT catalogs with constraints on the redshift (0.0420). The global goal of the WINGS project is the systematic study of the local cosmic variance of the cluster population and of the properties of cluster galaxies as a function of cluster properties and local environment. This data collection will allow to define a local 'Zero-Point' reference against which to gauge the cosmic evolution when compared to more distant clusters. The core of the project consists of wide-field optical imaging of the selected clusters in the B and V bands. We have also completed a multi-fiber, medium resolution spectroscopic survey for 51 of the clusters in the master sample. In addition, a NIR (JK) survey of ~50 clusters and an H_alpha + UV survey of some 10 clusters are presently ongoing, while a very-wide-field optical survey has also been programmed. In this paper we briefly outline the global objectives and the main characteristics of the WINGS project. Moreover, the observing strategy and the data reduction of the optical imaging survey (WINGS-OPT) are presented. We have achieved a photometric accuracy of ~0.025mag, reaching completeness to V~23.5. Field size and resolution (FWHM) span the absolute intervals (1.6-2.7)Mpc and (0.7-1.7)kpc, respectively, depending on the redshift and on the seeing. This allows the planned studies to get a valuable description of the local properties of clusters and galaxies in clusters., Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures, Accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics

In this brief overview of the stellar populations of galaxies in clusters I highlight some of the most recent results, including the downsizing of the k+a population and the star formation--local density relation. I conclude discussing some open questions regarding the interpretation of the observational results, and speculating on the current meaning of the words ``primordial'' and ``environmental''., Comment: 6 pages, 2 postscript figures - Invited review at the IAU Joint Discussion n.10 in Sydney, to appear in "Highlights of Astronomy", vol.13, IAU 2003