Interactions of Galaxies in the Galaxy Cluster Environment

We study the dependence of galaxy properties on the clustercentric radius and the environment attributed to the nearest neighbor galaxy using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) galaxies associated with the Abell galaxy clusters. We find that there exists a characteristic scale where the properties of galaxies suddenly start to depend on the clustercentric radius at fixed neighbor environment. The characteristic scale is 1 ∼ 3 times the cluster virial radius depending on galaxy luminosity. Existence of the characteristic scale means that the local galaxy number density is not directly responsible for the morphology-density relation in clusters because the local density varies smoothly with the clustercentric radius and has no discontinuity in general. What is really working in clusters is the morphology-clustercentric radius-neighbor environment relation, where the neighbor environment means both neighbor morphology and the local mass density attributed to the neighbor. The morphology-density relation appears working only because of the statistical correlation between the nearest neighbor distance and the local galaxy number density. We find strong evidence that the hydrodynamic interactions with nearby early-type galaxies is the main drive to quenching star formation activity of late-type galaxies in clusters. The hot cluster gas seems to play at most a minor role down to one tenth of the cluster virial radius. We also find that the viable mechanisms which can account for the clustercentric radius dependence of the structural and internal kinematics parameters are harassment and interaction of galaxies with the cluster potential. The morphology transformation of the late-type galaxies in clusters seems to have taken place through both galaxy-galaxy hydrodynamic interactions and galaxy-cluster/galaxy-galaxy gravitational interactions. Subject headings: galaxies: clusters: general – galaxies: evolution – galaxies: formation – galaxies: general