Searching for tidal tails – investigating galaxy harassment

Authors: J. I. Davies; S. Roberts¹; S. Sabatini²

Source: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 356, Number 2, January 2004 , pp. 794-800(7)

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Abstract:

Galaxy harassment has been proposed as a physical process that morphologically transforms low surface density disc galaxies into dwarf elliptical galaxies in clusters. It has been used to link the observed very different morphology of distant cluster galaxies (relatively more blue galaxies with ‘disturbed’ morphologies) with the relatively large numbers of dwarf elliptical galaxies found in nearby clusters. One prediction of the harassment model is that the remnant galaxies should lie on low surface brightness tidal streams or arcs. We demonstrate in this paper that we have an analysis method that is sensitive to the detection of arcs down to a surface brightness of 29 B

and we then use this method to search for arcs around 46 Virgo cluster dwarf elliptical galaxies. We find no evidence for tidal streams or arcs and consequently no evidence for galaxy harassment as a viable explanation for the relatively large numbers of dwarf galaxies found in the Virgo cluster.

Keywords: dust, extinction; galaxies: clusters: individual: Virgo; galaxies: dwarf

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.08500.x

Affiliations: 1: School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, The Parade, Cardiff CF24 3YB 2: Observatorio Astronomico di Roma, via Frascati 33, I-00040, Monte Porzio, Italy

Publication date: 2004-01-01