Deep spectroscopy of nearby galaxy clusters: IV The quench of the star formation in galaxies in the infall region of Abell\ 85

TL;DR

This study investigates how environmental factors influence the cessation of star formation in galaxies within Abell 85, highlighting the prevalence of post-starburst galaxies and their likely quenching mechanisms in different environments.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of post-starburst galaxy populations in Abell 85, identifying their properties, distribution, and proposing environment-dependent quenching mechanisms.

Findings

PSB galaxies are about 4.5% of the sample.

Most PSBs are low-mass dwarf galaxies.

Different quenching mechanisms are proposed for low and high-density environments.

Abstract

Our aim is to understand the role of the environment in the quenching of star formation of galaxies located in the infall cluster region of Abell 85 (A85). This is achieved by studying the post-starburst galaxy population as tracer of recent quenching. By measuring the equivalent width (EW) of the [OII] and Hdelta spectral lines, we classify the galaxies in three groups: passive (PAS), emission line (EL), and post-starburst (PSB) galaxies. The PSB galaxy population represents about 4.5% of the full sample. Dwarf galaxies (Mr > -18.0) account for about 70 - 80% of PSBs, which indicates that most of the galaxies undergoing recent quenching are low-mass objects. Independently of the environment, PSB galaxies are disk-like objects with g - r colour between the blue ELs and the red PAS ones. The PSB and EL galaxies in low-density environments show similar luminosities and local galaxy densities. The dynamics and local galaxy density of the PSB population in high density environments are shared with PAS galaxies. However, PSB galaxies inside A85 are at shorter clustercentric radius than PAS and EL ones. The value of the EW(Hdelta) is larger for those PSBs closer to the cluster centre. We propose two different physical mechanisms producing PSB galaxies depending on the environment. In low density environments, gas-rich minor mergers or accretions could produce the PSB galaxies. For high density environments like A85, PSBs would be produced by the removal of the gas reservoirs of EL galaxies by ram-pressure stripping when they pass near to the cluster centre.