Galaxy Evolution in Clusters of Galaxies

Start year
2004
Organizational Unit

Grants related:

    General
    Description

    Galaxies in the universe can be located in different environments, some of them are isolated or in low density regions and they are usually called field galaxies. The others can be located in galaxy associations, going from loose groups to clusters or even superclusters of galaxies. One of the foremost challenges of the modern Astrophysics is to achieve a complete theory about galaxy evolution. This theory should explain the relation between the environment and galaxy evolution. Galaxy clusters are high density environments where galaxies interact one to each other and with the intracluster material (ICM). In addition, the cluster dynamics is driven by the high density and quantity of dark matter present in them. Therefore, galaxy clusters are complex systems with multiple components (galaxies, ICM, dark matter) which are tightly bounded. The mix of all these components, as well as their interactions, makes galaxy clusters ideal laboratories to study the different mechanisms which cause the different evolution of galaxies in this high density environments with respect to field galaxies.

    The objective of this project is to study the formation and evolution of galaxies in these dense environments. The ‘Galaxy Evolution in Clusters’ group intend to understand in what environment each of the mechanisms proposed by numerical simulations to transform the galaxies dominates and how the evolution of the different types of galaxies (both bright and dwarf) occurs in the clusters. Quantifying observationally the efficiency of these mechanisms is not an easy task since many of them act at the same time, they do it in very different time scales, and in diverse regions of the cluster. However, there are some observational evidences that can be directly contrasted: i) morphological and structural distribution of the galaxies of the clusters; ii) luminosity function of galaxies in clusters; iii) diffuse light (quantity and distribution); iv) presence of galactic substructures within the clusters; v) spectro-photometric properties of dwarf and bright galaxies; vi) ICM properties. All these observables provide the necessary information to understand the relationship between environment and galactic evolution. These are the quantities this project aims at measuring for large samples of galaxy clusters.

    Principal investigator
    Project staff
    1. Intrinsic Shape of Galactic Bars. We find, for the first time, that 52% (16%) of bulges are thicker (flatter) than the surrounding bar. We suggest that these percentages might be representative of the fraction of classical and disc-like bulges in our sample, respectively.
    2. The Influence of the Environment in the Star Formation Quenching. Our results indicate that in low-density environments, post-starburst galaxies are formed by gas-rich minor mergers or accretions, whereas for high-density environments PSBs would be produced by the removal of the gas reservoirs of emission line galaxies by ram-pressure stripping.
    3. Morpho-Kinematic Properties of Galactic Bulges. We find that photometric diagnostics to separate different types of bulges (disc-like versus classical) might not be useful for S0 galaxies. Using the morpho-kinematics properties of S0 bulges derived in this paper we suggest that they are mainly formed by dissipational processes happening at high redshift.

    Related publications

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    • Galaxies within galaxies in the TIMER survey: stellar populations of inner bars are scaled replicas of main bars

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    • New Observations with Gemini and GTC of the VHE Blazar KUV 00311-1938: About Its Redshift and Environment

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    • The kinematics of young and old stellar populations in nuclear rings of MUSE TIMER galaxies

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    • Inside-out formation of nuclear discs and the absence of old central spheroids in barred galaxies of the TIMER survey

      The centres of disc galaxies host a variety of structures built via both internal and external processes. In this study, we constrain the formation and evolution of these central structures, in particular, nuclear rings and nuclear discs, by deriving maps of mean stellar ages, metallicities, and [α/Fe] abundances. We use observations obtained with

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    • Kinematic signatures of nuclear discs and bar-driven secular evolution in nearby galaxies of the MUSE TIMER project

      The central regions of disc galaxies hold clues to the processes that dominate their formation and evolution. To exploit this, the TIMER project has obtained high signal-to-noise and spatial resolution integral-field spectroscopy data of the inner few kpc of 21 nearby massive barred galaxies, which allows studies of the stellar kinematics in their

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    • Relations among structural parameters in barred galaxies with a direct measurement of bar pattern speed

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    • Stellar populations across galaxy bars in the MUSE TIMER project

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    • Deep spectroscopy in nearby galaxy clusters - V. The Perseus cluster

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    • Deconstructing double-barred galaxies in 2D and 3D - II. Two distinct groups of inner bars

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    • Trojans in the Solar Neighborhood

      About 20% of stars in the solar vicinity are in the Hercules stream, a bundle of stars that move together with a velocity distinct from the Sun. Its origin is still uncertain. Here, we explore the possibility that Hercules is made of trojans, stars captured at L4, one of the Lagrangian points of the stellar bar. Using GALAKOS─a high-resolution N

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    • Dynamical Structure of Small Bulges Reveals Their Early Formation in ΛCDM Paradigm

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    • SDSS-IV MaNGA: bar pattern speed estimates with the Tremaine-Weinberg method and their error sources

      Estimating the bar pattern speed (Ω bar) is one of the main challenges faced in understanding the role of stellar bars in galaxy dynamical evolution. This work aims to characterize different uncertainty sources affecting the Tremaine-Weinberg (TW) method to study the correlation between bar and galaxies physical parameters. We use a sample of 15

      Garma-Oehmichen, L. et al.

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    • Using HARPS-N to characterize the long-period planets in the PH-2 and Kepler-103 systems

      We present confirmation of the planetary nature of PH-2b, as well as the first mass estimates for the two planets in the Kepler-103 system. PH-2b and Kepler-103c are both long-period and transiting, a sparsely populated category of exoplanets. We use Kepler light-curve data to estimate a radius, and then use HARPS-N radial velocities to determine

      Dubber, Sophie C. et al.

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    • Growth and disruption in the Lyra complex

      Context. Nearby clusters of galaxies, z ≲ 0.1, are cosmic structures still under formation. Understanding the thermodynamic properties of merging clusters can provide crucial information on how they grow in the local universe. Aims: A detailed study of the intra-cluster medium (ICM) properties of un-relaxed systems is essential to understand the

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    • Fossil group origins. X. Velocity segregation in fossil systems

      Aims: We aim to study how the velocity segregation and the radial profile of the velocity dispersion depend on the prominence of the brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). Methods: We divided a sample of 102 clusters and groups of galaxies into four bins of magnitude gap between the two brightest cluster members. We then computed the velocity

      Zarattini, S. et al.

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    • Bar pattern speeds in CALIFA galaxies. II. The case of weakly barred galaxies

      Context. About 35% of the nearby disc galaxies host a weak bar for which different formation scenarios, including the weakening of a strong bar and tidal interaction with a companion, have been suggested. Measuring the bar pattern speeds of a sample of weakly barred galaxies is a key step in constraining their formation process, but such a

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    • Stellar populations of galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey up to z ̃ 1. III. The stellar content of the quiescent galaxy population during the last 8 Gyr

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    • The CALIFA view on stellar angular momentum across the Hubble sequence

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    • Investigating the multiwavelength behaviour of the flat spectrum radio quasar CTA 102 during 2013-2017

      We present a multiwavelength study of the flat-spectrum radio quasar CTA 102 during 2013-2017. We use radio-to-optical data obtained by the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope, 15 GHz data from the Owens Valley Radio Observatory, 91 and 103 GHz data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, near-infrared data from the Rapid Eye Monitor telescope, as well

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