# A young galaxy cluster in the old Universe

**Authors:** Tetsuya Hashimoto, Tomotsugu Goto, Rieko Momose, Chien-Chang Ho, Ryu, Makiya, Chia-Ying Chiang, and Seong Jin Kim

arXiv: 1908.01666 · 2019-08-21

## TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a local galaxy cluster with an unusually high fraction of blue, star-forming galaxies, challenging existing galaxy formation models and suggesting the presence of cold gas streams in massive halos.

## Contribution

The discovery of a local galaxy cluster with a high blue galaxy fraction that exceeds theoretical predictions, indicating gaps in current galaxy evolution models.

## Key findings

- Blue fraction of 0.57 in the cluster, significantly higher than typical values.
- Velocity dispersion of 510 km/s corresponding to a massive dark matter halo.
- High blue fraction probability (0.003%) challenges standard galaxy formation theories.

## Abstract

Galaxies evolve from a blue star-forming phase into a red quiescent one by quenching their star formation activity. In high density environments, this galaxy evolution proceeds earlier and more efficiently. Therefore, local galaxy clusters are dominated by well-evolved red, elliptical galaxies. The fraction of blue galaxies in clusters monotonically declines with decreasing redshift, i.e., the Butcher-Oemler effect. In the local Universe, observed blue fractions of massive clusters are as small as $\lesssim$ 0.2. Here we report a discovery of a \lq \lq blue cluster\rq \rq, that is a local galaxy cluster with an unprecedentedly high fraction of blue star-forming galaxies yet hosted by a massive dark matter halo. The blue fraction is 0.57, which is 4.0 $\sigma$ higher than those of the other comparison clusters under the same selection and identification criteria. The velocity dispersion of the member galaxies is 510 km s$^{-1}$, which corresponds to a dark matter halo mass of 2.0$^{+1.9}_{-1.0}\times 10^{14}$ M$_{\odot}$. The blue fraction of the cluster is more than 4.7 $\sigma$ beyond the standard theoretical predictions including semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. The probability to find such a high blue fraction in an individual cluster is only 0.003\%, which challenges the current standard frameworks of the galaxy formation and evolution in the $\Lambda$CDM Universe. The spatial distribution of galaxies around the blue cluster suggests that filamentary cold gas streams can exist in massive halos even in the local Universe. However these cold streams have already disappeared in the theoretically simulated local universes.

## Full text

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## Figures

34 figures with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1908.01666/full.md

## References

76 references — full list in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1908.01666/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1908.01666