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Environmental Extremists in the Virgo Cluster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2016

Jeffrey Kenney
Affiliation:
Yale University, Astronomy Department, P.O. Box 208101, New Haven, CT 06520-8101 USA
Rebecca Koopmann
Affiliation:
Yale University, Astronomy Department, P.O. Box 208101, New Haven, CT 06520-8101 USA

Extract

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Many types of galaxy interactions have been posited to occur in clusters, although it remains unclear which processes actually occur, and which ones might help explain the tendency for early type galaxies to inhabit high density environments, or cause the rapid evolution of cluster galaxies (e.g., Dressler et al. 1997). With these questions in mind, we have been conducting an environmental inventory of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. Our approach is to combine surveys of spirals and S0s with detailed studies of the most interesting and peculiar galaxies. In this paper, we describe two main points. 1.) There is a population of spiral galaxies in the Virgo cluster with the small central light concentrations (bulge-to-disk ratios, or B/D's) characteristic of isolated Sb and Sc galaxies, but global star formation rates lower than those of isolated spirals of any Hubble class (Sa-Sc). These Virgo galaxies are generally classified as “early type” (e.g. Sa), and thus contribute to the morphology-density relationship. 2.) There are several types of environmental interactions occurring in Virgo, including low velocity tidal interactions and mergers, high velocity tidal interactions and collisions, HI accretion, and ICM-ISM stripping. We discuss examples of some of these interactions.

Type
Groups & Clusters
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1999 

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