Abstract
CIZA J2242.8+5301 ($z = 0.188$, nicknamed 'Sausage') is an extremely massive
($M_2002.0 10^15M_ødot$ ), merging cluster with shock waves
towards its outskirts, which was found to host numerous emission-line galaxies.
We performed extremely deep Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope HI
observations of the 'Sausage' cluster to investigate the effect of the merger
and the shocks on the gas reservoirs fuelling present and future star formation
(SF) in cluster members. By using spectral stacking, we find that the
emission-line galaxies in the 'Sausage' cluster have, on average, as much HI
gas as field galaxies (when accounting for the fact cluster galaxies are more
massive than the field galaxies), contrary to previous studies. Since the
cluster galaxies are more massive than the field spirals, they may have been
able to retain their gas during the cluster merger. The large HI reservoirs are
expected to be consumed within $\sim0.75-1.0$ Gyr by the vigorous SF and AGN
activity and/or driven out by the out-flows we observe. We find that the
star-formation rate in a large fraction of H$\alpha$ emission-line cluster
galaxies correlates well with the radio broad band emission, tracing supernova
remnant emission. This suggests that the cluster galaxies, all located in
post-shock regions, may have been undergoing sustained SFR for at least 100
Myr. This fully supports the interpretation proposed by Stroe et al. (2015) and
Sobral et al. (2015) that gas-rich cluster galaxies have been triggered to form
stars by the passage of the shock.
Description
[1506.08822] Neutral hydrogen gas, past and future star-formation in galaxies in and around the 'Sausage' merging galaxy cluster
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