Galaxy Population in the Infall Regions of Intermediate Redshift Clusters

Abstract

We investigate the galaxy populations in 6 clusters of different x-ray luminosities at intermediate redshifts (z ≈ 0.25) concentrating on their star formation activity. Our ~500 Calar Alto MOSCA spectra come from targets covering large fields out to 2–4 cluster virial radii. To probe this so-called infall region is important since here newly arriving galaxies from the surrounding field encounter the special environment of clusters for the first time. We selected 3 fields containing 2 clusters each from the X-ray Dark Cluster Survey (Gilbank et al. 2004). Results for one field were already published by Gerken et al. 2004.

We find evidence that the process(es) that suppresses or truncates the star formation activity in cluster galaxies, sets in already at rather large distances from the cluster cores corresponding to low projected local galaxy densities. This changes the fraction of star forming galaxies rather quickly.