1. 12CO(J= 1 $\to $ 0) On-the-fly Mapping Survey of the Virgo Cluster Spirals. II. Molecular Gas Properties in Different Density Environments
- Author
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Min S. Yun, Aeree Chung, Marc Verheijen, Eun Jung Chung, and Astronomy
- Subjects
Ursa Major ,IRAM LEGACY SURVEY ,URSA-MAJOR CLUSTER ,Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics ,Astrophysics ,STAR-FORMATION RATES ,EARLY-TYPE DWARFS ,01 natural sciences ,Luminosity ,0103 physical sciences ,Ursa Major Cluster ,EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES ,010303 astronomy & astrophysics ,Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics ,Physics ,Spiral galaxy ,010308 nuclear & particles physics ,Star formation ,Astronomy ,Astronomy and Astrophysics ,Virgo Cluster ,ISM: molecules ,Galaxy ,Ram pressure ,NEUTRAL HYDROGEN ,RAM PRESSURE ,ALPHA SURFACE PHOTOMETRY ,Space and Planetary Science ,galaxies: star formation ,galaxies: clusters: individual: Virgo ,Pisces ,DIGITAL SKY SURVEY ,galaxies: evolution ,H-I - Abstract
This study investigated the properties of the molecular gas content and star formation activity of 17 Virgo spirals, 21 Ursa Major (UMa) spirals, 13 Pisces spiral galaxies, and a comparison sample of 11 field spiral galaxies with a spatially resolved gas and stellar distribution. The H I-deficient galaxies with a defH I > 0.4 have a similar range of CO luminosity normalized by the K-band luminosity (L CO/L K) like the field spirals, although their CO content can be smaller by up to a factor of 2. The CO, H I, and stellar disk diameters are closely related to each other for both cluster and field galaxies, and the relative diameters of the CO and H I disks grow monotonically and smoothly as the H I-to-stellar disk diameter ratio decreases. Cluster galaxies have a molecular gas consumption time up to 10 times shorter than that of the field comparison sample, suggesting a significant change in the molecular gas content and star formation activity among all the cluster galaxies, even when they do not show any sign of H I stripping. The strongly H I-stripped Virgo cluster galaxies show only a modestly reduced total gas consumption time, indicating that the star formation activity and gas consumption are a highly local (rather than global) phenomenon. Our finding is that the depletion of cold gas by ram-pressure stripping and/or starvation caused by preprocessing in each cluster environment makes galaxies evolve passively.
- Published
- 2017
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