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On the origin of the faint-end of the red sequence in high-density environments

  • Review Article
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Abstract

With the advent of the new generation wide-field cameras it became possible to survey in an unbiased mode galaxies spanning a variety of local densities, from the core of rich clusters, to compact and loose groups, down to filaments and voids. The sensitivity reached by these instruments allowed to extend the observation to dwarf galaxies, the most “fragile” objects in the universe. At the same time models and simulations have been tailored to quantify the different effects of the environment on the evolution of galaxies. Simulations, models, and observations consistently indicate that star-forming dwarf galaxies entering high-density environments for the first time can be rapidly stripped from their interstellar medium. The lack of gas quenches the activity of star formation, producing on timescales of \({\sim }\)1 Gyr quiescent galaxies with spectro-photometric, chemical, structural, and kinematical properties similar to those observed in dwarf early-type galaxies inhabiting rich clusters and loose groups. Simulations and observations consistently identify ram pressure stripping as the major effect responsible for the quenching of the star-formation activity in rich clusters. Gravitational interactions (galaxy harassment) can also be important in groups or in clusters whenever galaxies have been members since early epochs. The observation of clusters at different redshifts combined with the present high infalling rate of galaxies onto clusters indicate that the quenching of the star-formation activity in dwarf systems and the formation of the faint end of the red sequence is a very recent phenomenon.

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Notes

  1. Most large-scale surveys are currently available for the northern hemisphere. However, several large survey of the southern sky are under way, e.g. the ESO/VST and the DES (Dark Energy Survey) at NOAO.

  2. The absence of a significant environmental effect in Hogg et al. (2004) is due to a sensitivity bias: their analysis includes galaxies brighter than \(M_i={-}20\), while significant environmental issues affect galaxies fainter than \(M_i={-}19\).

  3. http://egg.astro.cornell.edu/index.php/.

  4. http://galex.lam.fr/guvics/.

  5. https://www.astrosci.ca/NGVS/The_Next_Generation_Virgo_Cluster_Survey/Home.html.

  6. http://wiki.arcetri.astro.it/bin/view/HeViCS/WebHome.

  7. http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/coma/index-mm.htm.

  8. http://www.h-atlas.org/.

  9. http://smakced.net/.

  10. http://www-astro.physics.ox.ac.uk/atlas3d/.

  11. http://califa.caha.es/.

  12. https://www.astrosci.ca/users/VCSFCS/Home.html.

  13. http://hedam.lam.fr/HRS/.

  14. The HI-deficiency parameter is defined as the difference, on logarithmic scale, between the expected and the observed HI gas mass of each single galaxy. The expected atomic gas mass is the mean HI mass of a galaxy of a given optical size and morphological type determined in a complete sample of isolated galaxies taken as reference (Haynes and Giovanelli 1984).

  15. Early claims of enhanced radio-continuum emission from LTGs in the A1367 and Coma clusters (Gavazzi and Jaffe 1985, 1986) are insufficient to infer a significant star-formation enhancement in clusters. It would not be surprising, however, if on a short time scale this would take place from the shocked material during the early phases of a ram pressure event.

  16. Examples of ETGs with nuclear or circumnuclear \(\hbox {H}\alpha \) emission in the Virgo cluster are given in Boselli et al. (2008a): VCC 450, 597, 710, 1175, 1617, 1855, or in Toloba et al. (2014b): VCC 170, 781, 1304, 1684.

  17. There is a clear inconsistency in the definition of ram pressure and starvation in cosmological simulations and semi-analytic models with respect to the observation and the simulations of single galaxies in local clusters. Cosmologists indistinctly define ram pressure, starvation or strangulation the removal of the hot gaseous halo of satellite galaxies entering the extended gas halo surrounding groups and clusters. In the study of nearby objects, ram pressure stripping is generally referred to the stripping of the cold gas component exerted by the hot cluster intergalactic medium on galaxies moving at high velocity. In the same studies, starvation or strangulation refers to the gas consumption via star formation of galaxies once the infall of pristine cold gas is stopped.

  18. We stress that this definition of starvation differs from the one originally proposed by Larson et al. (1980), where the galaxy quenches its activity of star formation once the gas of its halo, generally feeding the disk in unperturbed systems, is removed during the interaction with the hostile environment. In the Boselli et al. models, starvation is a passive process where star formation decreases after gas consumption because of the lack of the infall of pristine gas from the surrounding environment.

  19. The definition of post-starburst does not necessarily imply there was a particularly acute starburst phase, but that a normal star-formation phase was abruptly interrupted.

  20. The local number density \(\rho \) around each galaxy is measured within a cylinder of radius 1 \(h^{-1}\) Mpc and half-length \(1{,}000\,\hbox {km\,s}^{-1}\).

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Massimo Dotti, Matteo Fossati, Michele Fumagalli, and Elisa Toloba for their comments on the manuscript and Yannick Roehlly for his help in the preparation of the illustrations. G.G wishes to thank Michitoshi Yoshida and Masafumi Yagi for their permission to use the Halpha map in Fig. 21 prior to publication. The authors would like to thank L. Cortese, K. Rines, R. Smith, T. Lisker, E. Toloba, S. Tonnesen, and J. Stott for allowing us reproducing their published figures. During the writing of this review we made extensive use of the GOLDMine database (Gavazzi et al. 2013a, b) and of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Funding for the SDSS and SDSS-II has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The SDSS Web site is http://www.sdss.org/. The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC) for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are the American Museum of Natural History, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, University of Basel, University of Cambridge, Case Western Reserve University, The University of Chicago, Drexel University, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, The Johns Hopkins University, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, the Korean Scientist Group, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST), Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, LAM, Université d’Aix-Marseille & CNRS, UMR7326, 38 rue F. Joliot-Curie, 13388, Marseille Cedex 13, France

    Alessandro Boselli

  2. Università di Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della scienza 3, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Giuseppe Gavazzi

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  1. Alessandro Boselli
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  2. Giuseppe Gavazzi
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Correspondence to Alessandro Boselli.

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Boselli, A., Gavazzi, G. On the origin of the faint-end of the red sequence in high-density environments. Astron Astrophys Rev 22, 74 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00159-014-0074-y

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