HST viewing of spectacular star-forming trails behind ESO 137-001

TL;DR

This study uses HST observations to analyze star formation and its history in the ram pressure stripped tail of galaxy ESO 137-001, revealing young star complexes, their correlation with other regions, and the importance of nebular emissions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of star formation in a ram pressure stripped tail using multi-wavelength data, highlighting the importance of HST in constraining star formation history.

Findings

Star formation rate in the tail is 0.3-0.6 M_sun/yr.

Young star complexes are predominantly less than 10 Myr old.

Good correlation between HST blue clusters and HII regions.

Abstract

We present the results from the HST WFC3 and ACS data on an archetypal galaxy undergoing ram pressure stripping (RPS), ESO 137-001, in the nearby cluster Abell 3627. ESO 137-001 is known to host a prominent stripped tail detected in many bands from X-rays, Halpha to CO. The HST data reveal significant features indicative of RPS such as asymmetric dust distribution and surface brightness as well as many blue young star complexes in the tail. We study the correlation between the blue young star complexes from HST, HII regions from Halpha (MUSE) and dense molecular clouds from CO (ALMA). The correlation between the HST blue star clusters and the HII regions is very good, while their correlation with the dense CO clumps are typically not good, presumably due in part to evolutionary effects. In comparison to the Starburst99+Cloudy model, many blue regions are found to be young (< 10 Myr) and the total star formation (SF) rate in the tail is 0.3 - 0.6 M_Sun/yr for sources measured with ages less than 100 Myr, about 40% of the SF rate in the galaxy. We trace SF over at least 100 Myr and give a full picture of the recent SF history in the tail. We also demonstrate the importance of including nebular emissions and a nebular to stellar extinction correction factor when comparing the model to the broadband data. Our work on ESO 137-001 demonstrates the importance of HST data for constraining the SF history in stripped tails.