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Creators/Authors contains: "Finn, R A"

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  1. Galaxy evolution depends on the environment in which galaxies are located. The various physical processes (ram-pressure stripping, tidal interactions, etc.) that are able to affect the gas content in galaxies have different efficiencies in different environments. In this work, we examine the gas (atomic HI and molecular H2) content of local galaxies inside and outside clusters, groups, and filaments as well as in isolation using a combination of observational and simulated data. We exploited a catalogue of galaxies in the Virgo cluster (including the surrounding filaments and groups) and compared the data against the predictions of the Galaxy Evolution and Assembly (GAEA) semi-analytic model, which has explicit prescriptions for partitioning the cold gas content in its atomic and molecular phases. We extracted from the model both a mock catalogue that mimics the observational biases and one not tailored to observations in order to study the impact of observational limits on the results and predict trends in regimes not covered by the current observations. The observations and simulated data show that galaxies within filaments exhibit intermediate cold gas content between galaxies in clusters and in isolation. The amount of HI is typically more sensitive to the environment than H2and low-mass galaxies (log10[M/M]< 10) are typically more affected than their massive (log10[M/M]> 10) counterparts. Considering only model data, we identified two distinct populations among filament galaxies present in similar proportions: those simultaneously lying in groups and isolated galaxies. The former has properties more similar to cluster and group galaxies, and the latter is more similar to those of field galaxies. We therefore did not detect the strong effects of filaments themselves on the gas content of galaxies, and we ascribe the results to the presence of groups in filaments. 
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  2. It is now well established that galaxies have different morphologies, gas contents, and star formation rates (SFR) in dense environments like galaxy clusters. The impact of environmental density extends to several virial radii, and galaxies appear to be pre-processed in filaments and groups before falling into the cluster. Our goal is to quantify this pre-processing in terms of gas content and SFR, as a function of density in cosmic filaments. We have observed the two first CO transitions in 163 galaxies with the IRAM-30 m telescope, and added 82 more measurements from the literature, thus forming a sample of 245 galaxies in the filaments around the Virgo cluster. We gathered HI-21cm measurements from the literature and observed 69 galaxies with the Nançay telescope to complete our sample. We compare our filament galaxies with comparable samples from the Virgo cluster and with the isolated galaxies of the AMIGA sample. We find a clear progression from field galaxies to filament and cluster galaxies for decreasing SFR, increasing fraction of galaxies in the quenching phase, an increasing proportion of early-type galaxies, and decreasing gas content. Galaxies in the quenching phase, defined as having a SFR below one-third of that of the main sequence (MS), are only between 0% and 20% in the isolated sample, according to local galaxy density, while they are 20%–60% in the filaments and 30%–80% in the Virgo cluster. Processes that lead to star formation quenching are already at play in filaments; they depend mostly on the local galaxy density, while the distance to the filament spine is a secondary parameter. While the HI-to-stellar-mass ratio decreases with local density by an order of magnitude in the filaments, and two orders of magnitude in the Virgo cluster with respect to the field, the decrease is much less for the H 2 -to-stellar-mass ratio. As the environmental density increases, the gas depletion time decreases, because the gas content decreases faster than the SFR. This suggests that gas depletion precedes star formation quenching. 
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  3. null (Ed.)
    We present an HI-optical catalog of ~ 30,000 galaxies based on the 100% complete Arecibo Legacy Fast Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFALFA) survey combined with data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Our goal is to facilitate public use of the completed ALFALFA catalog by providing carefully determined matches to SDSS counterparts, including matches for ~ 10,000 galaxies that do not have SDSS spectra. These identifications can provide a basis for further cross-matching with other surveys using SDSS photometric IDs as a reference point. We derive absolute magnitudes and stellar masses for each galaxy using optical colors combined with an internal reddening correction designed for small- and intermediate-mass galaxies with active star formation. We also provide measures of stellar masses and star formation rates based on infrared and/or ultraviolet photometry for galaxies that are detected by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and/or the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX). Finally, we compare the galaxy population in the ALFALFA-SDSS sample with the populations in several other publicly-available galaxy catalogs, and confirm that ALFALFA galaxies typically have lower masses and bluer colors. 
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