Investigating HI ram pressure stripping near the Virgo cluster

Project Description:

As part of the pilot survey of the Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Survey (WALLABY), a 57 kpc long bridge of gas has recently been discovered between the dwarf galaxies NGC 4532 and DDO 137. This is in addition to the extensive neutral hydrogen (HI) halo and the 0.5 Mpc tail previously discovered by the Arecibo telescope and implies that both tidal and ram pressure forces may play a role in the formation of this system. However, recent studies suggest that the origin of the ram pressure forces is probably the Virgo cluster, even though the galaxies are well outside the virial radius of the cluster. We therefore observed the NGC 4532/DDO 137 system with MeerKAT with better resolution and column density sensitivity than possible with WALLABY to look for detailed signatures of ram-pressure stripping. The MeerKAT data will be the focus of this MSc project.

Research Area:

Astronomy

Project Level:

Masters

This Project Is Offered At The Following Node(s):

(UCT)