Berlin 2005 – scientific programme
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EP: Extraterrestrische Physik
EP 20: Poster-Session III: Astrophysik
EP 20.3: Poster
Tuesday, March 8, 2005, 09:00–19:00, Poster TU BH
Ram pressure stripping of disk galaxies — •Elke Rödiger1 and Gerhard Hensler2 — 1Institut für theoretische Physik und Astrophysik Uni Kiel — 2Institut für Astronomie, Uni Wien
The process of ram pressure stripping – the removal of the interstellar medium from a galaxy due to its motion through the intra-cluster medium (ICM) – is thought to be one of the main processes to explain the gas deficiency of disk galaxies in clusters. We study this process with two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations, concentrating on the dependence of the gas loss efficiency on ICM and galactic parameters. We expose a massive and a medium-mass disk galaxy to different constant face-on ICM winds. The winds cover the range from cluster centres to the outskirts, as well as galaxy groups.
In contrast to a basic analytical estimate, we find that the stripping efficiency depends slightly on the Mach number of the flow, but the mass loss is independent of the thickness and shape of the galaxy’s gas disk.