The Conversion of Late-type Into Early-type Dwarf Galaxies by Ram-pressure Stripping in the Fornax Cluster

We put to the test the hypothesis that the Fornax cluster dwarf galaxies are mostly a relatively recently acquired population, of which the star-forming, late-type members are converted into quiescent, early-type ones by ram-pressure stripping while being on orbits that plunge inside the inner few h...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Astrophysical journal. Letters 2010-12, Vol.724 (2), p.L171-L175
Main Authors: De Rijcke, S, Van Hese, E, Buyle, P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ANISOTROPY
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
EVOLUTION
GALACTIC EVOLUTION
GALAXIES
GALAXY CLUSTERS
ORBITS
STARS
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Summary:We put to the test the hypothesis that the Fornax cluster dwarf galaxies are mostly a relatively recently acquired population, of which the star-forming, late-type members are converted into quiescent, early-type ones by ram-pressure stripping while being on orbits that plunge inside the inner few hundred kiloparsecs of the cluster. We construct dynamical models with different anisotropy profiles for the dwarf galaxy population and show that only extremely radially anisotropic orbital distributions are in agreement with the available morphological, positional, and kinematical data, especially with the radially increasing late-to-early-type ratio. This corroborates the idea that the Fornax cluster dwarfs are an infall population and that environmental factors, in this case ram-pressure stripping, play a prominent role in converting late-type dwarfs into early-type ones.
ISSN:2041-8205
2041-8213
DOI:10.1088/2041-8205/724/2/L171