Mapping the Star Formation Activity of Five Jellyfish Galaxies in Massive Galaxy Clusters with GMOS/IFU

Ram-pressure stripping (RPS) is known as the main driver of quenching the star formation (SF) activity in cluster galaxies. However, galaxies undergoing RPS in galaxy clusters often show blue star-forming knots in their disturbed disks and tails. The existence of these "jellyfish galaxies" implies that RPS can temporarily boost the SF activity of cluster galaxies. Thus, jellyfish galaxies are very unique and interesting targets to study the influence of RPS on their SF activity, in particular with integral field spectroscopy (IFS). While there have been many IFS studies of jellyfish galaxies in low-mass clusters (e.g., the GASP survey), IFS studies of those in massive clusters have been lacking. We present an IFS study of five jellyfish galaxies in massive clusters at intermediate redshifts using the Gemini GMOS/IFU. Their star formation rates (SFRs) are estimated to be up to 15 Mo/yr in the tails and 50 Mo/yr in the disks. These SFRs are by a factor of 10 higher than those of star-forming galaxies on the main sequence in the M*-SFR relation at similar redshifts. Our results suggest that the SF activity of jellyfish galaxies tends to be more enhanced in massive clusters than in low-mass clusters. This implies that strong RPS in massive clusters can trigger strong starbursts.