2023/10/11 by Giunchi, E, Poggianti +21 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2310.07267
openalex publication_date 2023/10/11 · openalex created_date 2023/10/13 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We characterize the morphological properties of a statistically relevant sample of Hα and UV young star-forming clumps and optical complexes, observed with the Hubble Space Telescope in six galaxies of the GASP sample undergoing ram-pressure stripping. The catalogs comprise 2406 (323 in the tails) Hα clumps, 3750 (899) UV clumps and 424 tail optical complexes. About 15-20% of the clumps and 50% of the complexes are resolved in size. We find that more than half of the complexes contain no Hα clumps, while most of them contain at least one UV clump. The clump number and size increase with the complex size, while the median complex filling factor is larger for UV clumps (0.27) than for Hα clumps (0.10) and does not correlate with almost any morphological property. This suggests that the clumps number and size grow with the complex keeping the filling factor constant. When studying the position of the clumps inside their complexes, Hα clumps, and UV clumps to a lesser extent, show a displacement from the complex center of 0.1-1 kpc and, in ∼ 60% of the cases, they are displaced away from the galactic disk. This is in accordance with the fireball configuration, already observed in the tails of stripped galaxies. Finally, the filling factor and the clump radius increase with the distance from the galactic disk, suggesting that the reciprocal displacement of the different stellar generations increases as a consequence of the velocity gradient caused by ram pressure.