MeerKAT view of Hickson Compact Groups II. Hi deficiency in the cores and surrounding regions
Journal article, 2025
Context. Hickson compact groups (HCGs) offer an ideal environment for investigating galaxy transformation as a result of interactions. It has been established that the evolutionary sequence of HCGs is marked by an intermediate stage characterised by a substantial amount of Hi in their intragroup medium (IGrM) in the form of tidal tails and bridges (phase 2), rapidly followed by a final stage in which no IGrM gas is found and i which their member galaxies are highly Hi deficient (phase 3). Aims. Despite numerous single-dish and interferometric Hi studies on the HCGs, a clear Hi picture of the groups within their large-scale environment still remains to be uncovered. Taking advantage of MeerKAT’s high column density sensitivity and large field of view, we aim to investigate the rapid transformation of HCGs from the intermediate to late phases, and establish a picture of their gas content variations in the context of their large-scale environments. Methods. We performed MeerKAT observations of six HCGs that were selected to represent the intermediate and late phases of the proposed evolutionary sequence. Combining the Hi observations with data from recent wide-field optical surveys, we evaluated the Hi deficiencies of galaxies in a ∼300 radius of the HCGs. Results. We find that galaxies surrounding both phases exhibit similar distributions in their gas content. Similarly, galaxies making up the cores of phase 2 HCGs are comparable to their neighbours in terms of Hi deficiencies. However, phase 3 groups are over an order of magnitude more deficient than their surroundings, supporting previous findings that late-phase HCG galaxies are more evolved than their large-scale environments.
galaxies: evolution
galaxies: interactions
intergalactic medium
Author
A. Sorgho
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
L. Verdes-Montenegro
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
R. Ianjamasimanana
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Kelley Michelle Hess
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Onsala Space Observatory
M. G. Jones
University of Arizona
M. Korsaga
Université Joseph Ki-Zerbo
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
J. Wang
Beijing University of Technology
Xuchen Lin
Beijing University of Technology
J. M. Solanes
University of Barcelona
M. E. Cluver
Swinburne University of Technology
J. M. Cannon
Macalester College
A. Bosma
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
E. Athanassoula
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
A. del Olmo
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
J. Perea
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
J. Moldon
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
T. Wiegert
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
S. Sánchez-Expósito
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
J. Garrido
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
R. García-Benito
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
G. I.G. Józsa
Max Planck Society
Rhodes University
S. Borthakur
Arizona State University
T. H. Jarrett
University of the Western Cape
University of Cape Town
B. Namumba
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
E. Pérez
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
J. Román
Complutense University
O. Smirnov
Rhodes University
Istituto nazionale di astrofisica (INAF)
South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)
Min S. Yun
University of Massachusetts
Astronomy and Astrophysics
0004-6361 (ISSN) 1432-0746 (eISSN)
Vol. 696 A177Subject Categories (SSIF 2025)
Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Cosmology
DOI
10.1051/0004-6361/202452995
Related datasets
HCG deficiency analysis: first version of the code [dataset]
URI: https://zenodo.org/records/14965528