The effect of ram pressure on the molecular gas of galaxies: three case studies in the Virgo cluster

TL;DR

This study investigates how ram pressure from the intracluster medium influences the molecular gas in Virgo cluster galaxies, revealing morphological disturbances and localized star formation changes without clear molecular gas stripping.

Contribution

It provides high-resolution CO observations of three Virgo galaxies, showing molecular gas is affected in morphology and kinematics by ram pressure even without being stripped.

Findings

Molecular gas shows disturbed morphology and kinematics similar to HI.

Localized CO enhancements correlate with star formation regions.

Star-forming disks are shrinking as molecular gas properties change.

Abstract

We present 12CO (2-1) data of three Virgo spirals - NGC 4330, NGC 4402 and NGC 4522 obtained using the Submillimeter Array. These three galaxies show clear evidence of ram pressure stripping due to the cluster medium as found in previous HI imaging studies. Using high-resolution CO data, we investigate how the properties of the inner molecular gas disc change while a galaxy is undergoing HI stripping in the cluster. At given sensitivity limits, we do not find any clear signs of molecular gas stripping. However, both its morphology and kinematics appear to be quite disturbed as those of HI. Morphological peculiarities present in the molecular and atomic gas are closely related with each other, suggesting that molecular gas can be also affected by strong ICM pressure even if it is not stripped. CO is found to be modestly enhanced along the upstream sides in these galaxies, which may change the local star formation activity in the disc. Indeed, the distribution of H$\alpha$ emission, a tracer of recent star formation, well coincides with that of the molecular gas, revealing enhancements near the local CO peak or along the CO compression. FUV and H$\alpha$ share some properties in common, but FUV is always more extended than CO/H$\alpha$ in the three galaxies, implying that the star-forming disc is rapidly shrinking as the molecular gas properties have changed. We discuss how ICM pressure affects dense molecular gas and hence star formation properties while diffuse atomic gas is being removed from a galaxy.