1. A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE)
- Author
-
Boselli, A., Fossati, M., Longobardi, A., Kianfar, K., Dametto, N.Z., Amram, P., Anderson, J. P., Andreani, P., Boissier, S., Boquien, Médéric, Buat, Véronique, Consolandi, G., Cortese, L., Côté, P., Cuillandre, J.C., Ferrarese, L., Galbany, Lluís, Gavazzi, G., Gwyn, Stephen, Hensler, G., Hutchings, J., Peng, E. W., Postma, J. F., Roediger, J., Roehlly, Y., Serra, P., Trinchieri, G., Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales (France), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (US), Indian Institue of Astrophysics, Canadian Space Agency, Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, National Institutes of Natural Sciences (Japan), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España), Australian Research Council, and European Commission
- Subjects
Galaxies: elliptical and lenticular ,clusters: individual: Virgo [Galaxies] ,Galaxies: evolution ,interactions [Galaxies] ,clusters: general [Galaxies] ,Galaxies: clusters: individual: Virgo ,evolution [Galaxies] ,Galaxies: interactions ,cD ,elliptical and lenticular [Galaxies] ,Galaxies: ISM ,ISM [Galaxies] ,Galaxies: clusters: general - Abstract
As part of the Virgo Cluster Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission, a blind narrow-band H+[NII] imaging survey of the Virgo cluster carried out with MegaCam at the CFHT, we discovered eight massive (1010 . Mstar . 1011 M) lenticular galaxies with prominent ionised gas emission features in their inner (a few kiloparsec) regions. These features are either ionised gas filaments similar to those observed in cooling flows (two galaxies), or they are thin discs with sizes 0:7 . R(H) . 2:0 kpc (six galaxies), thus significantly smaller than those of the stellar disc (R(H) ' 7 22%Riso(r)). The morphological properties of these discs are similar to those of the dust seen in absorption in high-resolution HST images. Using a unique set of multifrequency data, including new or archival ASTROSAT/UVIT, GALEX, HST, CFHT, Spitzer, and Herschel imaging data, combined with IFU (MUSE, ALMA) and long-slit (SOAR) spectroscopy, we show that while the gas that is located within these inner discs is photoionised by young stars, which signals ongoing star formation, the gas in the filamentary structures is shock ionised. The star formation surface brightness of these discs is similar to that observed in late-type galaxies. Because of their reduced size, however, these lenticular galaxies are located below the main sequence of unperturbed or cluster star-forming systems. By comparing the dust masses measured from absorption maps in optical images, from the Balmer decrement, or estimated by fitting the UV-to-far-IR spectral energy distribution of the target galaxies, we confirm that the dust masses derived from optical attenuation maps are heavily underestimated because of geometrical eects due to the relative distribution of the absorbing dust and the emitting stars. We also show that these galaxies have gas-to-dust ratios of G=D ' 80320 30 , and that the star formation within these discs follows the Schmidt relation, but with an eciency that is reduced by a factor of 2.5. Using our unique set of multifrequency data, we discuss the possible origin of the ionised gas in these objects, which suggests multiple and complex formation scenarios for massive lenticular galaxies in clusters., We acknowledge financial support from “Programme National de Cosmologie and Galaxies” (PNCG) funded by CNRS/INSU-IN2P3-INP, CEA and CNES, France, and from “Projet International de Coopération Scientifique” (PICS) with Canada funded by the CNRS, France. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and of the GOLDMine database (http://goldmine.mib.infn.it/) (Gavazzi et al. 2003). The UVIT project is collaboration between the following institutes from India: Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru, Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, and National Centre for Radioastrophysics (NCRA) (TIFR), Pune, and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA 2013.1.00493.S. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. M.F. has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) (grant agreement No 757535). N.Z.D. acknowledges partial support from FONDECYT through project 3190769. L.G. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIN) under the 2019 Ramón y Cajal program RYC2019-027683 and from the Spanish MCIN project HOSTFLOWS PID2020-115253GA-I00. M.B. gratefully acknowledges support by the ANID BASAL project FB210003 and the FONDECYT regular grant 1211000. L.C. acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council Discovery Project and Future Fellowship funding schemes (DP210100337, FT180100066). Parts of this research were conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013.
- Published
- 2022