Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21538605s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #386.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.601
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We present two different studies that shed light on the crucial interplay between the intracluster medium (ICM) and the stellar content of clusters. Our first study tested the impact of the stellar content of galaxy clusters on the enrichment of the ICM by carrying out XMM X-ray measurements of iron (Fe) content of 10 nearby galaxy clusters with measured intracluster and galactic stellar mass content. By including intracluster stars (ICS) into the Fe budget, we were able to resolve a long-standing problem where there was insufficient Fe produced by galaxies to explain the observed ICM enrichment. Our work showed that the ICS contributed on average 30% of the observed Fe in clusters, requiring a galaxy Fe mass loss fraction of 80%. The second study focussed on the effects of the ICM on infalling cluster galaxies. Through Spitzer IRS imaging spectroscopy and IRAC imaging, we searched for shock-heated and stripped molecular hydrogen gas in a sample of four cluster galaxies that were highly likely to be undergoing ram-pressure stripping. We found two cases that showed strong molecular hydrogen emission, which is evidence for an ICM/interstellar medium interaction. In one case, we detected a warm molecular hydrogen tail that extends approximately 20 kpc from the infalling spiral galaxy, ESO 137-001. We estimated a warm molecular hydrogen mass in the tail of 3x107 solar masses, and a molecular hydrogen mass loss rate of 1-2 solar masses/year, which sets an upper limit of 0.5-1 Gyr for gas exhaustion. Modeling of the ram-pressure stripping timescale showed that this galaxy will lose all of its gas in just one pass through the cluster core. Finally, we found 8 um excess sources in the tail that corresponded to previously detected extraplanar Halpha sources, confirming that these were extraplanar starforming regions and likely sources of ICS.
Gonzalez Alejandro
Rieke George
Rieke Marcia
Sivanandam Suresh
Zabludoff Ann
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