Chemical properties of star-forming galaxies in Virgo-related large-scale filamentary structures.

The filament is an interesting structure in the Universe because clusters form at the nodes of filaments and grow through the continuous accretion of individual galaxies and groups from the surrounding filaments. We study the chemical properties of star-forming (SF) galaxies in the five large-scale filamentary structures (Leo II A, Leo II B, Leo Minor, Canes Venatici, and Virgo III) related with the Virgo cluster, with the spectroscopic data taken with the SDSS DR12, and compare them with those of the Virgo cluster and field galaxies. In mass-metallicity relation, most of the SF galaxies in Virgo-related filaments (except Virgo III filament) show lower metallicity on average than the Virgo cluster SF galaxies, but similar to field counterparts. These chemically less evolved feature of SF galaxies in the filaments and field are more pronounced for lower mass galaxies. This is probably because low mass galaxies have low potential wells and are therefore likely to be sensitive to cluster environmental effects. Interestingly, we find that the metallicity enhancement of SF galaxies in the Virgo III filament. In chemical and morphological perspectives, SF galaxies in the Virgo III thought to be transitional objects possibly transformed from SF late-type galaxies and are on the way to red early-type galaxies in the filament environment. This is the first discovery of systematic 'chemical pre-processing' signature for filament galaxies in Local Universe before they fall into the cluster.