GLACE survey: galaxy activity in ZwCl0024+1652 cluster from strong optical emission lines

TL;DR

This study uses tunable filter observations to analyze emission-line galaxies in the ZwCl0024+1652 cluster at z~0.4, revealing how star formation and nuclear activity vary with environment and galaxy mass.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of star formation and nuclear activity in ZwCl0024+1652 using H$eta$ and [OIII] lines, and demonstrates the effectiveness of tunable filter observations for high-redshift cluster studies.

Findings

Star formation rate peaks at stellar mass ~10^9.8 M_sun.

Star formation and AGN fractions decline in high-density cluster regions.

SFR correlates with stellar mass; sSFR anti-correlates with stellar mass.

Abstract

Although ZwCl0024+1652 galaxy cluster at $z\sim0.4$ has been thoroughly analysed, it lacks a comprehensive study of star formation and nuclear activity of its members. With GaLAxy Cluster Evolution (GLACE) survey, a total of 174 H$\alpha$ emission-line galaxies (ELGs) were detected, most of them having [NII}]. We reduced and analysed a set of [OIII] and H$\beta$ tunable filter (TF) observations within GLACE survey. Using H$\alpha$ priors, we identified [OIII] and H$\beta$ in 35 ($\sim$20%) and 59 ($\sim$34%) sources, respectively, with 21 of them having both emission lines, and 20 having in addition [NII]. Applying BPT-NII diagnostic diagram, we classified these ELGs into 40% star-forming (SF), 55% composites, and 5% LINERs. Star formation rate (SFR) measured through extinction corrected H$\alpha$ fluxes increases with stellar mass ($\mathrm{M}_{*}$), attaining its peak at $\mathrm{M}_{*}\sim10^{9.8}\mathrm{M}_\odot$. We observed that the cluster centre to $\sim$1.3Mpc is devoid of SF galaxies and AGN. Our results suggest that the star formation efficiency declines as the local density increases in the cluster medium. Moreover, the SF and AGN fractions drop sharply towards high-density environments. We observed a strong decline in SF fraction in high $\mathrm{M}_*$, confirming that star formation is highly suppressed in high-mass cluster galaxies. Finally, we determined that SFR correlates with $\mathrm{M}_*$ while specific SFR (sSFR) anti-correlates with $\mathrm{M}_*$, both for cluster and field. This work shows the importance and strength of TF observations when studying ELGs in clusters at higher redshifts. We provide with this paper a catalogue of ELGs with H$\beta$ and/or [OIII] lines in ZwCl0024+1652 cluster.