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We present MeerKAT HI observations of six jellyfish candidate galaxies (JFCGs) in the galaxy cluster, A2626. Two of the six galaxies JW100 and JW103, that were identified as JFCGs from B-band images, are confirmed as jellyfish galaxies (JFGs). Both of the JFGs have low HI content, reside in the cluster core, and move at very high velocities ($\sim$ 3$\sigma_{cl}$). The other JFCGs, identified as non-jellyfish galaxies, are HI rich, with HI morphologies revealing warps, asymmetries, and possible tidal interactions. Both the A2626 JFGs and three other confirmed JFGs from the GASP sample show that these galaxies are HI stripped but not yet quenched. We detect HI, Halpha, and CO tails of similar extent ($\sim$ 50 kpc) in JW100. Comparing the multi-phase velocity channels, we do not detect any HI or CO emission in the northern section of the tail where Halpha emission is present, possibly due to prolonged interaction between the stripped gas and the ICM. We also observe an anti-correlation between HI and CO, which hints at an efficient conversion of HI to H2 in the southern part of the tail. We find that both RPS and HI-to-H2 conversion are significant depletion channels for atomic gas. HI-to-H2 conversion is more efficient in the disc than in the tail., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We study the evolutionary path of the Fornax cluster galaxy NGC$~$1436, which is known to be currently transitioning from a spiral into a lenticular morphology. This galaxy hosts an inner star-forming disc and an outer quiescent disc, and we analyse data from the MeerKAT Fornax Survey, ALMA, and the Fornax3D survey to study the interstellar medium and the stellar populations of both disc components. Thanks to the combination of high resolution and sensitivity of the MeerKAT data, we find that the $\textrm{H}\scriptstyle\mathrm{I}$ is entirely confined within the inner star-forming disc, and that its kinematics is coincident with that of the CO. The cold gas disc is now well settled, which suggests that the galaxy has not been affected by any environmental interactions in the last $\sim1~$Gyr. The star formation history derived from the Fornax3D data shows that both the inner and outer disc experienced a burst of star formation $\sim5$ Gyr ago, followed by rapid quenching in the outer disc and by slow quenching in the inner disc, which continues forming stars to this day. We claim that NGC$~$1436 has begun to effectively interact with the cluster environment 5$~$Gyr ago, when a combination of gravitational and hydrodynamical interactions caused the temporary enhancement of the star-formation rate. Furthermore, due to the weaker gravitational binding $\textrm{H}\scriptstyle\mathrm{I}$ was stripped from the outer disc, causing its rapid quenching. At the same time, accretion of gas onto the inner disc stopped, causing slow quenching in this region., Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), accepted for publication. Data available at the MeerKAT Fornax Survey website https://sites.google.com/inaf.it/meerkatfornaxsurvey

We report the fluxes of 10 compact sources in 90 GHz maps of the galaxy cluster A401 and the intercluster region between A401 and A399 from 66 hr of observations with the MUSTANG-2 receiver on the Green Bank Telescope. All sources have been previously detected in other bands (IR or radio). The flux and central coordinates of each source are fitted with 2D Gaussian profiles and fluxes are compared with an aperture photometry method. Future observations over a larger area would be a unique tool to compare theoretical predictions of source counts at 90 GHz with measured data, as well as refining their spectral index and improve extrapolations to higher frequencies.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited., Observations of the neutral atomic hydrogen (H I) in the nuclear starburst galaxy NGC 4945 with MeerKAT are presented. We find a large amount of halo gas, previously missed by H I observations, accounting for 6.8 per cent of the total H I mass. This is most likely gas blown into the halo by star formation. Our maps go down to a 3σ column density level of 5 × 1018 cm−2. We model the H I distribution using tilted-ring fitting techniques and find a warp on the galaxy’s approaching and receding sides. The H I in the northern side of the galaxy appears to be suppressed. This may be the result of ionization by the starburst activity in the galaxy, as suggested by a previous study. The origin of the warp is unclear but could be due to past interactions or ram pressure stripping. Broad, asymmetric H I absorption lines extending throughout the H I emission velocity channels are present towards the nuclear region of NGC 4945. Such broad lines suggest the existence of a nuclear ring moving at a high circular velocity. This is supported by the clear rotation patterns in the H I absorption velocity field. The asymmetry of the absorption spectra can be caused by outflows or inflows of gas in the nuclear region of NGC 4945. The continuum map shows small extensions on both sides of the galaxy’s major axis that might be signs of outflows resulting from the starburst activity. © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society., RI acknowledges financial support from grant RTI2018-096228-B-C31 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER,UE) and from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the ‘Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa’ awarded to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709), from the grant IAA4SKA (Ref. R18-RT-3082) from the Economic Transformation, Industry, Knowledge and Universities Council of the Regional Government of Andalusia and the European Regional Development Fund from the European Union. The MeerKAT telescope is operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is a facility of the National Research Foundation, an agency of the Department of Science and Innovation. This work is based upon research supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation. The financial assistance of the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) towards this research is hereby acknowledged (www.sarao.ac.za). At Ruhr University Bochum, this research is supported by BMBF Verbundforschung grant 05A20PC4 and by DFG Sonderforschungsbereich SFB1491. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme grant agreement no. 882793, project name MeerGas. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no.679627; project name FORNAX).

We present JVLA-C observations of the HI gas in JO204, one of the most striking jellyfish galaxies from the GASP survey. JO204 is a massive galaxy in the low-mass cluster Abell 957 at z=0.04243. The HI map reveals an extended 90 kpc long ram-pressure stripped tail of neutral gas, stretching beyond the 30 kpc long ionized gas tail and pointing away from the cluster center. The HI mass seen in emission is (1.32 $ \pm 0.13) \times 10^{9} \rm M_{\odot}$, mostly located in the tail. The northern part of the galaxy disk has retained some HI gas, while the southern part has already been completely stripped and displaced into an extended unilateral tail. Comparing the distribution and kinematics of the neutral and ionized gas in the tail indicates a highly turbulent medium. Moreover, we observe associated HI absorption against the 11 mJy central radio continuum source with an estimated HI absorption column density of 3.2 $\times 10^{20}$ cm$^{-2}$. The absorption profile is significantly asymmetric with a wing towards higher velocities. We modelled the HI absorption by assuming that the HI and ionized gas disks have the same kinematics in front of the central continuum source, and deduced a wider absorption profile than observed. The observed asymmetric absorption profile can therefore be explained by a clumpy, rotating HI gas disk seen partially in front of the central continuum source, or by ram-pressure pushing the neutral gas towards the center of the continuum source, triggering the AGN activity., Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We present MeerKAT observations of neutral hydrogen gas (HI) in the nearby merger remnant NGC 1316 (Fornax A), the brightest member of a galaxy group which is falling into the Fornax cluster. We find HI on a variety of scales, from the galaxy centre to its large-scale environment. For the first time we detect HI at large radii (70 - 150 kpc in projection), mostly distributed on two long tails associated with the galaxy. Gas in the tails dominates the HI mass of NGC 1316: 7e+8 Msun -- 14 times more than in previous observations. The total HI mass is comparable to the amount of neutral gas found inside the stellar body, mostly in molecular form. The HI tails are associated with faint optical tidal features thought to be the remnant of a galaxy merger occurred a few billion years ago. They demonstrate that the merger was gas-rich. During the merger, tidal forces pulled some gas and stars out to large radii, where we now detect them in the form of optical tails and, thanks to our new data, HI tails; while torques caused the remaining gas to flow towards the centre of the remnant, where it was converted into molecular gas and fuelled the starburst revealed by the galaxy's stellar populations. Several of the observed properties of NGC 1316 can be reproduced by a ~ 10:1 merger between a dominant, gas-poor early-type galaxy and a smaller, gas-rich spiral occurred 1 - 3 Gyr ago, likely followed by subsequent accretion of satellite galaxies., Astronomy & Astrophysics, accepted

We present VLA HI observations of JO206, a prototypical ram-pressure stripped galaxy in the GASP sample. This massive galaxy (M$_{\ast} =$ 8.5 $\times$ 10$^{10}$ M$_{\odot}$) is located at a redshift of $z =$ 0.0513, near the centre of the low-mass galaxy cluster, IIZw108 ($\sigma \sim575$ km/s). JO206 is characterised by a long tail ($\geq$90 kpc) of ionised gas stripped away by ram-pressure. We find a similarly long HI tail in the same direction as the ionised gas tail and measure a total HI mass of $3.2 \times 10^{9}$ M$_{\odot}$. This is about half the expected HI mass given the stellar mass and surface density of JO206. A total of $1.8 \times 10^{9}$ M$_{\odot}$ (60%) of the detected HI is in the gas stripped tail. An analysis of the star formation rate shows that the galaxy is forming more stars compared to galaxies with the same stellar and HI mass. On average we find a HI gas depletion time of $\sim$0.5 Gyr which is about four times shorter than that of "normal" spiral galaxies. We performed a spatially resolved analysis of the relation between star formation rate density and gas density in the disc and tail of the galaxy at the resolution of our HI data. The star formation efficiency of the disc is about 10 times higher than that of the tail at fixed HI surface densities. Both the inner and outer parts of JO206 show an enhanced star formation compared to regions of similar HI surface density in field galaxies. The enhanced star formation is due to ram-pressure stripping during the galaxy's first infall into the cluster., Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We present a catalogue of 261 new infrared selected members of the 3C129 galaxy cluster. The cluster, located at $z \approx$ 0.02, forms part of the Perseus-Pisces filament and is obscured at optical wavelengths due to its location in the zone of avoidance. We identified these galaxies using the $J-$ and $K-$band imaging data provided by the UKIDSS Galactic Plane Survey within an area with a radius of $1.1^{\circ}$ centred on the X-ray emission of the cluster at $\ell, b \approx 160.52^{\circ}, 0.27^{\circ}$. A total of 26 of the identified galaxy members have known redshifts 24 of which are from our 2016 Westerbork HI survey and two are from optical spectroscopy. An analysis of the galaxy density at the core of the 3C129 cluster shows it to be less dense than the Coma and Norma clusters, but comparable to the galaxy density in the core of the Perseus cluster. From an assessment of the spatial and velocity distributions of the 3C129 cluster galaxies that have redshifts, we derived a velocity of $cz = 5227 \pm 171$ km/s and $\sigma = 1097 \pm 252$ km/s for the main cluster, with a substructure in the cluster outskirts at $cz = 6923 \pm 71$ km/s with $\sigma = 422 \pm 100$ km/s. The presence of this substructure is consistent with previous claims based on the X-ray analysis that the cluster is not yet virialised and may have undergone a recent merger., Comment: 33 pages, 16 figures, includes an appendix, accepted for publication in A&A

Within the GASP survey, aimed at studying the effect of the ram-pressure stripping on the star formation quenching in cluster galaxies, we analyze here ALMA observations of the jellyfish galaxy JW100. We find an unexpected large amount of molecular gas ($\sim 2.5 \times 10^{10} M_{\odot}$), 30\% of which is located in the stripped gas tail out to $\sim$35 kpc from the galaxy center. The overall kinematics of molecular gas is similar to the one shown by the ionized gas, but for clear signatures of double components along the stripping direction detected only out to 2 kpc from the disk. The line ratio $r_{21}$ has a clumpy distribution and in the tail can reach large values ($\geq 1$), while its average value is low (0.58 with a 0.15 dispersion). All these evidence strongly suggest that the molecular gas in the tail is newly born from stripped HI gas or newly condensed from stripped diffuse molecular gas. The analysis of interferometric data at different scales reveals that a significant fraction ($\sim 40\%$) of the molecular gas is extended over large scales ($\geq 8$ kpc) in the disk, and this fraction becomes predominant in the tail ($\sim 70\%$). By comparing the molecular gas surface density with the star formation rate surface density derived from the \Ha emission from MUSE data, we find that the depletion time on 1 kpc scale is particularly large ($5-10$ Gyr) both within the ram-pressure disturbed region in the stellar disk, and in the complexes along the tail., Accepted for publication in ApJ

Ram-pressure stripping is a crucial evolutionary driver for cluster galaxies and jellyfish galaxies characterized by very extended tails of stripped gas, and they are the most striking examples of it in action. Recently, those extended tails are found to show ongoing star formation, raising the question of how the stripped, cold gas can survive long enough to form new stars outside the stellar disk. In this study, we summarize the most recent results achieved within the GASP collaboration to provide a holistic explanation for this phenomenon. We focus on two textbook examples of jellyfish galaxies, JO206 and JW100, for which, via multi-wavelength observations from radio to X-ray and numerical simulations, we have explored the different gas phases (neutral, molecular, diffuse-ionized, and hot). Based on additional multi-phase gas studies, we now propose a scenario of stripped tail evolution including all phases that are driven by a magnetic draping sheath, where the intracluster turbulent magnetized plasma condenses onto the galaxy disk and tail and produces a magnetized interface that protects the stripped galaxy tail gas from evaporation. In such a scenario, the accreted environmental plasma can cool down and eventually join the tail gas, hence providing additional gas to form stars. The implications of our findings can shed light on the more general scenario of draping, condensation, and cooling of hot gas surrounding cold clouds that is fundamental in many astrophysical phenomena.