The Pattern of H i Deficiency in the Virgo Cluster
Abstract
A sample of 160 galaxies in the Virgo region, including 16 new 21-cm profiles in the Virgo 5-degree core obtained with the 305-m Arecibo telescope, are examined to investigate the severe depletion of interstellar H I within spiral galaxies in the Virgo cluster core. A similar and non-Gaussian distribution is found for the distribution of H I deficiencies of both faint galaxies and brighter spirals, and populations of galaxies with normal abundances of interstellar H I, and those of gas poor objects exhibiting a late-type morphology, are both noted. One-sixth of the sample within the Virgo 5-degree core have lost more than 90 percent by mass of their original neutral hydrogen, and three quarters of the galaxies found within 2.5 degrees of M87 are H I poor by more than a factor of three. The most deficient galaxies are also found to be the ones with the smallest ratios of H I to optical disk size, and H I poor galaxies are redder than normal, indicating that star formation has been quenched.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- July 1986
- DOI:
- 10.1086/164357
- Bibcode:
- 1986ApJ...306..466H
- Keywords:
-
- Hydrogen;
- Interstellar Gas;
- Radio Astronomy;
- Virgo Galactic Cluster;
- Centimeter Waves;
- Line Spectra;
- Red Shift;
- Astrophysics;
- GALAXIES: CLUSTERING;
- INTERSTELLAR: MATTER;
- RADIO SOURCES: 21 CM RADIATION