Modelling the photometric and morphological evolution of disc galaxies in the cluster environment
A. Marasco, B. M. Poggianti, B. Vulcani, A. Moretti, M. Gullieuszik, J. Fritz
Comments 16 pages, 11 Figures, 2 Tables. Accepted by A&A
Journal ref A&A 708, A18 (2026)
详情
Observations indicate that the disc population in galaxy clusters has undergone rapid evolution, transitioning from a dominance of blue spirals to red S0s over the past $\sim7$ Gyr. We build a simplified cluster evolutionary model in the $Λ$CDM framework to constrain the characteristic timescales of this transformation. In our model, field spirals joining the cluster are subject to ram-pressure stripping (RPS), which removes their gas reservoir leading to the quenching of their star formation on a timescale $t_{\rm s}$, and to an (initially) unspecified mechanism that transforms them into S0s on a timescale $t_{\rm m}$. We assume that $t_{\rm s}$ and $t_{\rm m}$ are independent and both power-law functions of $M_\star/M_{\rm cl}$, the galaxy-to-cluster mass ratio. We constrain our model using the observed distribution of spirals and S0s in a color-mass plane from the OmegaWINGS and EDisCS cluster surveys at $z\simeq0.055$ and $z\simeq0.7$. Our best-fit model reproduces the data remarkably well and predicts evolutionary trends for the main morphological fractions in agreement with previous studies. We find typical $t_{\rm s}$ between $0.1$ and $1$ Gyr, compatible with previous estimates. A surprisingly strong anti-correlation between $t_{\rm s}$ and $M_\star/M_{\rm cl}$ is required in order to suppress the formation of red, low-mass spirals at low redshift, which we interpret as driven by orbit anisotropy. Conversely, $t_{\rm m}$ depends very weakly on $M_\star/M_{\rm cl}$ and has typical values of a few Gyr. The inferred morphological evolution is compatible with that resulting from the ageing of the stellar populations in galaxies abruptly quenched by ram pressure stripping: we confirm spectrophotometric ageing as a key channel for the spiral-to-S0 transition in galaxy clusters, with secular evolution playing a secondary role.