Jellyfish: The origin and distribution of extreme ram-pressure stripping events in massive galaxy clusters

TL;DR

This study analyzes the origin and distribution of extreme ram-pressure stripping events in massive galaxy clusters at intermediate redshifts, suggesting they are mainly triggered by cluster mergers and occur at large distances from cluster centers.

Contribution

It introduces new morphological criteria to identify ram-pressure stripping galaxies and provides observational evidence linking extreme RPS events to cluster mergers at intermediate redshifts.

Findings

Extreme RPS events occur primarily at >400 kpc from cluster centers.

High-velocity infall trajectories are common for RPS, especially in merging clusters.

The study doubles the known number of jellyfish galaxies at z>0.3.

Abstract

We investigate the observational signatures and physical origin of ram-pressure stripping (RPS) in 63 massive galaxy clusters at $z=0.3-0.7$, based on images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. Using a training set of a dozen "jellyfish" galaxies identified earlier in the same imaging data, we define morphological criteria to select 211 additional, less obvious cases of RPS. Spectroscopic follow-up observations of 124 candidates so far confirmed 53 as cluster members. For the brightest and most favourably aligned systems we visually derive estimates of the projected direction of motion based on the orientation of apparent compression shocks and debris trails. Our findings suggest that the onset of these events occurs primarily at large distances from the cluster core ($>400$ kpc), and that the trajectories of the affected galaxies feature high impact parameters. Simple models show that such trajectories are highly improbable for galaxy infall along filaments but common for infall at high velocities, even after observational biases are accounted for, provided the duration of the resulting RPS events is $\lesssim$500 Myr. We thus tentatively conclude that extreme RPS events are preferentially triggered by cluster mergers, an interpretation that is supported by the disturbed dynamical state of many of the host clusters. This hypothesis implies that extreme RPS might occur also near the cores of merging poor clusters or even merging groups of galaxies. Finally, we present nine additional "jellyfish" galaxies at z$>$0.3 discovered by us, thereby doubling the number of such systems known at intermediate redshift.