1203.3220 (Jonathan D. Hernández-Fernández et al.)

Disentangling the role of environmental processes in galaxy clusters    [PDF]

Jonathan D. Hernández-Fernández, J. M. Vilchez, J. Iglesias-Páramo

In this work we present the results of a novel approach devoted to disentangle the role of the environmental processes affecting galaxies in clusters. This is based on the analysis of the NUV-r' distributions of a large sample of star-forming galaxies in clusters spanning more than four absolute magnitudes. The galaxies inhabit three distinct environmental regions: virial regions, cluster infall regions and field environment. We have applied rigorous statistical tests in order to analyze both, the complete NUV-r' distributions and their averages for three different bins of r'-band galaxy luminosity down to M_r' ~ -18, throughout the three environmental regions considered. We have identified the environmental processes that significantly affect the star-forming galaxies in a given luminosity bin by using criteria based on the characteristics of these processes: their typical time-scales, the regions where they operate and the galaxy luminosity range for which their effects are more intense. We have found that the high-luminosity (M_r'<=-20) star-forming galaxies do not show significant signs in their star formation activity neither of being affected by the environment in the last ~10^8 yr nor of a sudden quenching in the last 1.5 Gyr. The intermediate-luminosity (-20View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3220