Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2020

Publication Title

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Volume

493

Abstract

Evolution of galaxies in dense environments can be affected by close encounters with neighbouring galaxies and interactions with the intracluster medium. Dwarf galaxies (dGs) are important as their low mass makes them more susceptible to these effects than giant systems. Combined luminosity functions (LFs) in the r and u band of 15 galaxy clusters were constructed using archival data from the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope. LFs were measured as a function of clustercentric radius from stacked cluster data. Marginal evidence was found for an increase in the faint-end slope of the u-band LF relative to the r-band with increasing clustercentric radius. The dwarf-to-giant ratio (DGR) was found to increase toward the cluster outskirts, with the u-band DGR increasing faster with clustercentric radius compared to the r-band. The dG blue fraction was found to be ∼2 times larger than the giant galaxy blue fraction over all clustercentric distance (∼5σ level). The central concentration (C) was used as a proxy to distinguish nucleated versus non-nucleated dGs. The ratio of high-C to low-C dGs was found to be ∼2 times greater in the inner cluster region compared to the outskirts (2.8σ level). The faint-end slope of the r-band LF for the cluster outskirts (0.6 ≤ r/r200 < 1.0) is steeper than the Sloan Digital Sky Survey field LF, while the u-band LF is marginally steeper at the 2.5σ level. Decrease in the faint-end slope of the r- and u-band cluster LFs towards the cluster centre is consistent with quenching of star formation via ram pressure stripping and galaxy–galaxy interactions.

Issue

4

First Page

5625

Last Page

5635

DOI

10.1093/mnras/staa697

ISSN

1365-2966

Rights

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society following peer review. The version of record

Rude, C. M., Sultanova, M. R., Kaduwa Gamage, G. L. I., Barkhouse, W. A., & Kalawila Vithanage, S. P. (2020). Star formation in low-redshift cluster dwarf galaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 493(4), 5625–5635. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa697

is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa697

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