Speaker
Description
Cold molecular gas is the penultimate gas phase in the baryonic cycle leading to star formation, and a key regulator of galaxy growth. Traced by the CO line, it is a most sensitive tracker of galaxy interactions with their environment. However, there is not a consensus on how environmental mechanisms, such as ram pressure or tidal interactions, affect the reservoirs traced by CO. To date, it is unclear if cluster galaxies are CO deficient, or if these processes can trigger CO and star formation. The Hydra I galaxy cluster is at a remarkable intermediate stage of assembly, manifesting both virialized and recently adhered structures, and active processes of ram pressure. Thus, it offers a rich yet unexplored niche for molecular gas studies. We present the combination of ALMA ACA CO(1-0) observations of 108 galaxies with a spatial resolution of 10” (2.8 kpc) with well matched MeerKAT HI observations (11x1800; 3.1x5.1 kpc) of this cluster. This allows us to offer an unprecedented comparison of atomic and molecular gas morphologies over similar spatial scales in Hydra’s galaxies. We present preliminary results of our census of molecular gas in Hydra Cluster, comparing the relative cold gas fractions as a function of stellar mass and location within the cluster. At the dawn of the SKA, this work uniting MeerKAT and ALMA shows the impact that the next generations of radio telescopes will have in the field of galaxy evolution.
