We present results from a systematic study of star formation in local galaxy clusters using 22 micron data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The 69 systems in our sample are drawn from the Cluster Infall Regions Survey (CIRS), and all have robust mass determinations. The all-sky WISE data enables us to quantify the amount of star formation, as traced by 22 micron, as a function of radius well beyond R200, and investigate the dependence of total star formation rate upon cluster mass. We find that the fraction of star-forming galaxies increases with cluster radius but remains below the field value even at 3 R200. We also find that there is no strong correlation between the mass-normalized total specific star formation rate and cluster mass, indicating that the mass of the host cluster does not strongly influence the total star formation rate of cluster members.
@article{arxiv.1108.4693,
title = {A WISE View of Star Formation in Local Galaxy Clusters},
author = {Sun Mi Chung and Peter R. Eisenhardt and Anthony H. Gonzalez and Spencer A. Stanford and Mark Brodwin and Daniel Stern and Thomas Jarrett},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1108.4693},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, 10 pages, 5 figures