Effects of environment on the properties of cluster galaxies via ram pressure stripping

T. E. TECCE; S. A. CORA; P. B. TISSERA; M. G. ABADI

Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas, UNLP, La Plata, Argentina

Congreso; 52 Reunión Anual de la Asociación Argentina de Astronomía; 2009

Galaxies moving through the hot diffuse gas in galaxy clusters may lose a significant fraction of their cold gas via ram pressure stripping (RPS). Combining non-radiative N-body/SPH simulations of 10^14 ­ -- 10^15 h-1 M_Sun clusters and a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation which implements the RPS effect, we study its influence on galaxy colors, gas content, and star formation. RPS affects mainly M_V > -17 galaxies and starts becoming significant only at z = 0.5, strongly suppressing star formation in the affected galaxies and causing a marked dependence of the cold gas content with clustercentric radius. Colors are mildly affected, with an increase in the fraction of faint red galaxies. Galaxies in the cluster outskirts are relatively more gas-depleted in the RPS model than in a model without RPS.