Colloquium: The LOFAR view of ram-pressure stripping in the Virgo cluster

© Henrik Edler

Ram pressure stripping is an important environmental process that contributes to the quenching of star formation in cluster galaxies. Since it also affects the non-thermal phase of the interstellar medium, we can reveal its action by detecting the ram-pressure stripped synchrotron tails at radio frequencies.Due to its proximity, the nearby Virgo cluster is a key laboratory to probe this phenomenon. In this talk, I will introduce our multi-frequency imaging campaign of the cluster, in which we survey the system using the LOFAR LBA, HBA and MeerKAT. Based on this survey data, we carried out a census of ram pressure stripping in Virgo, yielding a sample of 17 objects. I will discuss how the radio properties of the ram-pressure stripped population differ from a control sample of non-perturbed objects and what physical mechanisms could explain these differences.