Ram Pressure Stripping Made Easy: An Analytical Approach

TL;DR

This paper presents an analytical, kinematic model for ram pressure stripping in galaxies, accurately reproducing simulations and applying to real galaxy data to explain gas removal phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a simple analytical approach that describes ram pressure stripping based on the duration and intensity of ram pressure pulses, aligning with simulation results.

Findings

The model closely matches SPH simulation outcomes.

Most galaxies follow a tight relation in the ram pressure pulse parameter space.

The analysis explains gas deficiencies in Virgo cluster galaxies.

Abstract

The removal of gas by ram pressure stripping of galaxies is treated by a purely kinematic description. The solution has two asymptotic limits: if the duration of the ram pressure pulse exceeds the period of vertical oscillations perpendicular to the galactic plane, the commonly used quasi-static criterion of Gunn & Gott is obtained which uses the maximum ram pressure that the galaxy has experienced along its orbit. For shorter pulses the outcome depends on the time-integrated ram pressure. This parameter pair fully describes the gas mass fraction that is stripped from a given galaxy. This approach closely reproduces results from SPH simulations. We show that typical galaxies follow a very tight relation in this parameter space corresponding to a pressure pulse length of about 300 Myr. Thus, the Gunn & Gott criterion provides a good description for galaxies in larger clusters. Applying the analytic description to a sample of 232 Virgo galaxies from the GoldMine database, we show that the ICM provides indeed the ram pressures needed to explain the deficiencies. We also can distinguish current and past strippers, including objects whose stripping state was unknown.