The evolution of dwarf galaxies in clusters

Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe, with a big spread in their formation state and dynamical properties.  In these high density environments, galaxies evolve under several physical processes that impact their evolution, e.g., their morphology and stellar content. For instance, the disruption of substructure in galaxy clusters likely plays an important role in shaping their population given that a significant fraction of cluster galaxies today have spent time in a previous host system. Understanding how groups breakup in clusters could potentially help us identify these pre-processed galaxies, once they have left their groups and mixed with the cluster population. 

I have investigated these concepts by using N-body zoom-in simulations, particularly,  we address  when and why the disruption of groups happens, and where the group galaxies end up in the cluster after the disruption. On the other hand, dwarf galaxies are highly susceptible to environmental effects, therefore, we also focused on these least massive galaxies in the most massive structures, where the environmental effect is strongest. By using an observational sample of 12 clusters of the KIWICS survey we select a sample of bright dwarf galaxies in each cluster and analysed their spatial distribution, stellar colour, and as well as their Sérsic index and effective radius with the aim to compare these properties between different cluster environments. We complemented this study by analysing two well known clusters, Virgo and Fornax  and compared, particularly, the spatial distribution of the bright and dwarf galaxies in these two different clusters.

Dissertation: http://hdl.handle.net/11370/880f0227-de1b-483c-a7bc-0d8842957ce3