Abstract

Abstract It has been proposed that the filament environment is closely connected to the pre-processing of galaxies, where their properties may have been changed by environmental effects in the filament before they fell into the galaxy cluster. We present the chemical properties of star-forming dwarf galaxies (SFDGs) in five filamentary structures (Virgo III, Leo Minor, Leo II A, Leo II B, and Canes Venatici) around the Virgo cluster using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey optical spectroscopic data and Galaxy Evolution Explorer ultraviolet photometric data. We investigate the relationship between stellar mass, gas-phase metallicity, and specific star formation rate (sSFR) of the SFDGs in the Virgo filaments in comparison to those in the Virgo cluster and field. We find that, at a given stellar mass, SFDGs in the Virgo filaments show lower metallicity and higher sSFR than those in the Virgo cluster on average. We observe that SFDGs in the Virgo III filament show enhanced metallicities and suppressed star formation activities comparable to those in the Virgo cluster, whereas SFDGs in the other four filaments exhibit similar properties to the field counterparts. Moreover, about half of the galaxies in the Virgo III filament are found to be morphologically transitional dwarf galaxies that are supposed to be on the way to transforming into quiescent dwarf early-type galaxies. Based on the analysis of the galaxy perturbation parameter, we propose that the local environment represented by the galaxy interactions might be responsible for the contrasting features in chemical pre-processing found in the Virgo filaments.

Highlights

  • The large-scale structure of the Universe is characterized by a web-like network composed of filaments that intersect at nodes wherein clusters of galaxies are found (Bond et al 1996)

  • O/H vs. Stellar Mass and Specific Star Formation Rate vs. Stellar Mass Distributions In Figure 4(a) and (c), we present the distributions of O/H vs. stellar mass and specific star formation rate (sSFR) vs. stellar mass for star-forming dwarf galaxies (SFDGs) in the Virgo filaments and Virgo cluster

  • We presented the chemical properties and star formation activity of SFDGs in five filamentary structures physically connected to the Virgo cluster by comparing them with those in the Virgo cluster and field

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

The large-scale structure of the Universe is characterized by a web-like network composed of filaments that intersect at nodes wherein clusters of galaxies are found (Bond et al 1996). Environment connected with the cluster is responsible for enhanced star formation activity and an increased fraction of star-forming galaxies in the filaments (Porter & Raychaudhury 2007; Fadda et al 2008; Biviano et al 2011; Coppin et al 2012; Darvish et al 2014) These observational results provide evidence that the properties of galaxies may have been changed in the filaments via several environmental effects before they fell into galaxy clusters. Two studies have quantified the properties of galaxies in the Virgo filaments, in terms of their colors, star formation rate, and gas content with respect to the vertical distance from the filament spine and local galaxy density (Lee et al 2021; Castignani et al 2021).

Selection of Dwarf Galaxies in Different Environments
Measurement of Emission Lines
Selection of Star-forming Dwarf Galaxies
Morphological Subsamples of Star-forming Dwarf Galaxies
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Effects of the Environment
Environmental Disparity between Virgo filaments
Transitional Dwarf Galaxies
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
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