Exploring Star Formation in Cluster Galaxies with the Herschel Space Observatory

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

Nominally designed to locate high-redshift galaxies magnified by 44 massive foreground clusters, the ``Herschel Lensing Survey'' (HLS; PI: Egami) also provides deep 5-band, far-infrared (FIR) imaging of the galaxies contained within those clusters. For sources at these redshifts (z 0.2-0.4), Herschel photometry spans the peak of the dust component, allowing us to constrain the dust properties, measure total infrared luminosity and hence derive obscured star formation rate. Although a large fraction of galaxies in massive clusters are quiescent early-types and therefore remain undetected by Herschel, the far-infrared highlights regions of activity within the system. The FIR effectively probes the transitional phases of cluster galaxy evolution, exposing starburst mechanisms such as tidal interactions and mergers, as well as the remnants of the as-yet un-quenched in-fall population.
Here we focus on two particular, contrasting clusters at z 0.3: the famous merging system known as the Bullet Cluster, and a relatively undisturbed cluster MS2137. We locate the FIR-bright cluster members and characterize their dust component, allowing us to study the distribution of star formation in the two systems as a function of morphology and local environment. In addition, we investigate an intriguing subpopulation of FIR-luminous galaxies with dust component SEDs that do not conform to the templates derived from local field galaxies, yet are also unlike any sources observed at higher redshift.

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