Environmental processing for distant brightest cluster galaxies
Gianluca Castignani (UNIBO - INAF OAS)
Tuesday 06/06/2023 @ 14:00, Sala IV piano Battiferro - Presenza + remoto
Brightest cluster galaxies (BCG) are today passive and very massive galaxies at the center of their clusters, still accreting mass through swallowing companions, and gas from cooling flows. However their formation history is still a matter of debate. I present the results of a large multi-wavelength project on distant BCGs, mostly based on an IRAM campaign at millimeter wavelengths targeting cold gas (CO) in distant and star forming brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). I will describe how strong environment-driven mechanisms such as intra-cluster medium cooling, active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback, ram-pressure, and mergers favor the strong processing of the cold gas feeding the star formation, and ultimately help to quench the BCGs. Thousands of distant clusters and BCGs will be detected with Euclid, enabling an unprecedented leverage to constrain galaxy evolution in clusters and still forming protoclusters.