Star formation at different stages of ram-pressure stripping as observed through far-ultraviolet imaging of 13 GASP galaxies

TL;DR

This study investigates how ram-pressure stripping affects star formation in galaxy tails and discs using far-ultraviolet and H-alpha imaging of 13 galaxies, revealing correlations between stripping strength and star formation activity.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the relationship between ram-pressure stripping stages and star formation properties in galaxy tails and discs, utilizing multi-wavelength imaging and emission line diagnostics.

Findings

Strong stripping correlates with extended ionized tails and active star formation.

Star formation in tails is primarily driven by photoionization from young stars.

Galaxies with truncated discs show confined star formation and signs of recent infall.

Abstract

Galaxies undergoing ram-pressure stripping develop gaseous tails that can extend several kiloparsecs outside the galaxy disc. We used far-ultraviolet and H$\alpha$ imaging from the GASP survey to investigate how different stages of stripping affect star formation properties in the tail and disc of 13 galaxies undergoing stripping. These galaxies have different stripping strengths, as identified from the MUSE integral field spectroscopy. The star-forming knots in the disc and tails show a good correspondence between the measured FUV and H$\alpha$ flux. This is especially true for strong and extreme cases of stripping, which have developed extended ionized gaseous tails featuring clumpy structures. The mechanism behind the H$\alpha$ emission on the tails of these regions, which correlates well with FUV emission, is photoionization caused by young massive stars. The optical emission line ratio maps enable us to understand the emission mechanism, which can be attributed to star formation, LINER activity, or a combination of both phenomena and AGN. The star-forming regions in the emission line maps correspond well to the areas with significant FUV flux in these galaxies. Six galaxies exhibit minimal star formation in their tails, with two cases star formation is limited to the central regions and their discs are truncated. In galaxies with truncated discs, star formation is confined to a smaller region on the disc, as indicated by the FUV flux, compared to H$\alpha$. Galaxies with strong stripping are undergoing recent star formation and are likely recent infalls. Galaxies with truncated discs confine star formation to the center, likely because they have completed a cluster crossing that depleted most of their outer gaseous disc. Galaxies with minimal FUV flux along their tails exhibit unresolved H$\alpha$ emission which may be attributed to processes other than star formation.