# The Fornax3D project: Tracing the assembly history of the cluster from the kinematic and line-strength maps

## TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution spectroscopic maps of 31 Fornax cluster galaxies to analyze their kinematic and chemical properties, revealing insights into the cluster's assembly history and galaxy evolution within it.

## Contribution

It provides detailed spatially-resolved kinematic and chemical maps for a significant sample of cluster galaxies, linking their properties to their accretion history and cluster environment.

## Key findings

- Most galaxies are regular rotators; few are slow rotators.
- Extended emission-line gas is common in late-type galaxies.
- The cluster comprises three main galaxy groups with distinct histories.

## Abstract

The 31 brightest galaxies (m_B < 15 mag) inside the virial radius of the Fornax cluster were observed from the centres to the outskirts with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer on the Very Large Telescope. These observations provide detailed high-resolution maps of the line-of-sight kinematics and line strengths of the stars and ionised gas reaching 2-3 Re for 21 early-type galaxies and 1-2 Re for 10 late-type galaxies. The majority of the galaxies are regular rotators, with eight hosting a kinematically distinct core. Only two galaxies are slow rotators. The mean age, total metallicity, and [Mg/Fe] abundance ratio in the bright central region inside 0.5 Re and in the galaxy outskirts are presented. Extended emission-line gas is detected in 13 galaxies, most of them are late-type objects with wide-spread star formation. The measured structural properties are analysed in relation to the galaxies' position in the projected phase space of the cluster. This shows that the Fornax cluster appears to consist of three main groups of galaxies inside the virial radius: the old core; a clump of galaxies, which is aligned with the local large-scale structure and was accreted soon after the formation of the core; and a group of galaxies that fell in more recently.