J/A+A/694/A204 Morphologies of ram pressure stripped galaxies (Crossett+, 2025)
Identification of ram pressure stripping features in galaxies using
citizen science.
Crossett J.P., Jaffe Y.L., McGee S.L., Smith R., Bellhouse C., Bettoni D.,
Vulcani B., Kelkar K., Lourenco A.C.C.
<Astron. Astrophys. 694, A204 (2025)>
=2025A&A...694A.204C 2025A&A...694A.204C (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Galaxies ; Redshifts ; Optical
Keywords: galaxies: clusters: general - galaxies: evolution - galaxies: spiral -
galaxies: structure
Abstract:
Ram pressure stripped galaxies are rare cases of environmental
evolution in action. However, our ability to understand these
transforming galaxies is limited by the small number of identified
galaxies experiencing ram pressure stripping (RPS).
Our aim is to explore the efficacy of citizen science classifications
in identifying ram pressure stripped galaxies, and use this to aid in
motivating new potential samples of ram pressure stripped candidates.
We compiled a sample of over 200 known ram pressure stripped galaxies
from the existing literature, with morphological classifications
obtained from Galaxy Zoo. We compared these galaxies with magnitude
and redshift-matched comparison cluster and field galaxies.
Additionally, we created a sample of SDSS cluster galaxies, with
morphological classifications similar to known ram pressure stripped
galaxies, and compared the fraction of potential new RPS candidates
against control samples.
We find that ram pressure stripped galaxies exhibit a higher
proportion of "odd" and "irregular" morphological classifications
compared to field and cluster comparison samples. This trend is
particularly pronounced in galaxies displaying strong optical ram
pressure stripping features, but absent from galaxies with only radio
tails. We find that SDSS galaxies with Galaxy Zoo classifications
consistent with the known RPS galaxies have a higher fraction of
visible ram pressure stripping features (19%) compared with other
cluster galaxies (12%) when classified by experts. We identify 101 new
ram pressure stripping candidate galaxies through these expert
classifications.
We demonstrate that indirect morphological classifications from
citizen science projects can increase the efficiency with which new
stripping candidates are found. Projects such as Galaxy Zoo can aid in
the identification of ram pressure stripped galaxies that are key to
understanding galaxy evolution in clusters.
Description:
Citizen science morphologies of published ram pressure stripped
galaxies were analysed. A new sample of SDSS galaxies was generated
with morphologies consistent with these known ram pressure stripped
galaxies. Control cluster SDSS galaxies were also taken. After expert
classifications of both of these samples, 101 of the SDSS galaxies
were considered to be consistent with ram pressure stripping features,
and included in this table.
SDSS galaxies with morphological features consistent with ram pressure
stripping as found in the paper.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
tablea3.dat 60 101 SDSS galaxies with morphological features
consistent with ram pressure stripping
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See also:
V/139 : The SDSS Photometric Catalog, Release 9 (Adelman-McCarthy+, 2012)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: tablea3.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 24 A24 --- SDSS SDSS Name, SDSS_JHHMMSS.ss+DDMMSS.s (1)
26- 35 F10.6 deg RAdeg Galaxy right ascension (J2000) (1)
37- 45 F9.6 deg DEdeg Galaxy declination (J2000) (1)
47- 54 F8.6 --- z Galaxy redshift (1)
56- 60 F5.3 --- Jclass Average Jclass value for RPS strength (2)
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Note (1): Values as per SDSS DR8 values
Note (2): 1-5 scale (from 5 (strongest) to 1 (weakest)) for ram pressure
stripping strength similar to Poggianti et al. (2016AJ....151...78P 2016AJ....151...78P,
Cat. J/AJ/151/78).
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Acknowledgements:
Jacob P. Crossett, jacob.crossett(at)uv.cl
References:
Kauffmann et al., 2003MNRAS.341...33K 2003MNRAS.341...33K, Stellar masses and star formation
histories for 105 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 13-Jan-2025