The Effect of the Transformation of Spiral Galaxies in the Virgo Cluster on Broadband Color Evolution

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

Galaxy evolution and the effect of environment on that evolution is one of the central questions of modern extragalactic astronomy. The nearby Virgo Cluster provides us with an ideal laboratory to study galaxy-galaxy and galaxy-cluster interactions at a level of detail impossible at higher redshift. In detailed, pan-chromatic surveys of Virgo, we have seen galaxies transformed by their interaction with the intra-cluster medium, with star-forming gas stripped from spiral galaxies. Using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we present the results of a study of the global broadband optical properties of 44 Virgo Cluster spiral galaxies from the VIVA galaxy survey. These results show that spiral galaxies actively being stripped maintain blue colors while stripping is ongoing. However, a comparison between the colors of stripped spirals and their HI content suggests that more completely stripped galaxies are, indeed, redder than those that are only modestly HI deficient. This suggests that, as galaxies become more completely stripped, their global colors become redder and that in a cluster more massive than Virgo, such stripping could effectively transform galaxies from blue to red. By comparing broadband colors to the stripping timescales derived from optical spectroscopy and stellar population synthesis, we determine that the broadband color evolution is complex, with dust and the age of the stellar population both playing a role. By comparing detailed studies of a nearby cluster with statistical results from the much larger SDSS sample, we are able to gain insights into the details of how environmentally-driven galaxy evolution affects global broadband colors.

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