Metal enrichment via ram pressure stripping in the IGM of the compact galaxy group RGH 80

Abstract

By creating and analyzing two dimensional gas temperature and abundance maps of the RGH 80 compact galaxy group with high-quality Chandra data, we detect a high-abundance ( 0.7 Z⊙) arc, where the metal abundance is significantly higher than the surrounding regions by 0.3 Z⊙. This structure shows tight spatial correlations with the member galaxy PGC 046529, as well as with the arm-like feature identified on the X-ray image in the previous work of Randall et al. (2009). Since no apparent signature of AGN activity is found to be associated with PGC 046529 in multi-band observations, and the gas temperature, metallicity, and mass of the high-abundance arc resemble those of the ISM of typical early-type galaxies, we conclude that this high-abundance structure is the remnant of the ISM of PGC 046529, which was stripped out of the galaxy by ram pressure stripping due to the motion of PGC 046529 in RGH 80. This novel case shows that ram pressure stripping can work as efficiently in the metal enrichment process in galaxy groups as it can in galaxy clusters. © 2010 National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences and IOP Publishing Ltd..