Morphology of Star-forming Clumps in Ram-pressure Stripped Galaxies as Seen by HST

Abstract

Abstract We characterize the morphological properties of a statistically relevant sample of H α and UV young star-forming clumps and optical complexes, observed with the Hubble Space Telescope in six galaxies of the GASP sample undergoing ram pressure stripping. The catalogs comprise 2406 (323 in the tails) H α clumps, 3750 (899) UV clumps, and 424 tail optical complexes. About 15%–20% of the clumps and 50% of the complexes are resolved in size. We find that more than half of the complexes contain no H α clumps, while most of them contain at least one UV clump. The clump number and size increase with the complex size, while the median complex filling factor is larger for UV clumps (0.27) than that for H α clumps (0.10) and does not correlate with almost any morphological property. This suggests that the clumps' number and size grow with the complex keeping the filling factor constant. When studying the position of the clumps inside their complexes, H α clumps, and UV clumps to a lesser extent, show a displacement from the complex center of 0.1–1 kpc, and in ∼60% of the cases, they are displaced away from the galactic disk. This is in accordance with the fireball configuration, already observed in the tails of stripped galaxies. Finally, the filling factor and the clump radius increase with the distance from the galactic disk, suggesting that the reciprocal displacement of the different stellar generations increases as a consequence of the velocity gradient caused by ram pressure.