HI gas kinematics of paired galaxies in the cluster environment from ASKAP pilot observations

  • Kim, Shin-Jeong (Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Sejong University) ;
  • Oh, Se-Heon (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sejong University) ;
  • Kim, Minsu (Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Sejong University) ;
  • Park, Hye-Jin (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sejong University) ;
  • Kim, Shinna (Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Sejong University)
  • Published : 2021.10.13

Abstract

We examine the HI gas kinematics and distributions of galaxy pairs in group or cluster environments from high-resolution Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) WALLABY pilot observations. We use 32 well-resolved close pair galaxies from the Hydra, Norma, and NGC 4636, two clusters and a group of which are identified by their spectroscopy information and additional visual inspection. We perform profile decomposition of HI velocity profiles of the galaxies using a new tool, BAYGAUD which allows us to separate a line-of-sight velocity profile into an optimal number of Gaussian components based on Bayesian MCMC techniques. Then, we construct super profiles via stacking of individual HI velocity profiles after aligning their central velocities. We fit a model which consists of double Gaussian components to the super profiles, and classify them as kinematically cold and warm HI gas components with respect to their velocity dispersions, narrower or wider 𝜎, respectively. The kinematically cold HI gas reservoir (M_cold/M_HI) of the paired galaxies is found to be relatively higher than that of unpaired control samples in the clusters and the group, showing a positive correlation with the HI mass in general. Additionally, we quantify the gravitational instability of the HI gas disk of the sample galaxies using their Toomre Q parameters and HI morphological disturbances. While no significant difference is found for the Q parameter values between the paired and unpaired galaxies, the paired galaxies tend to have larger HI asymmetry values which are derived using their moment0 map compared to those of the non-paired control sample galaxies in the distribution.

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