@article{c1b828923f914e89ae7349d187595d2f,
title = "The MeerKAT Fornax Survey: I. Survey description and first evidence of ram pressure in the Fornax galaxy cluster",
abstract = "The MeerKAT Fornax Survey maps the distribution and kinematics of atomic neutral hydrogen gas (H I) in the nearby Fornax galaxy cluster using the MeerKAT telescope. The 12 deg2 survey footprint covers the central region of the cluster out to ∼Rvir and stretches south-west out to ∼2Rvir to include the NGC 1316 galaxy group. The H I column density sensitivity (3σ over 25 km s-1) ranges from 5× 1019 cm-2 at a resolution of ∼10'' (∼1 kpc at the 20 Mpc distance of Fornax) down to ∼1018 cm-2 at ∼1' (∼6 kpc), and slightly below this level at the lowest resolution of ∼100'' (∼10 kpc). The H I mass sensitivity (3σ over 50 km s-1) is 6 × 105 Mo. The H I velocity resolution is 1.4 km s-1. In this paper, we describe the survey design and H I data processing, and we present a sample of six galaxies with long, one-sided, starless H I tails (only one of which was previously known) radially oriented within the cluster and with measurable internal velocity gradients. We argue that the joint properties of the H I tails represent the first unambiguous evidence of ram pressure shaping the distribution of H I in the Fornax cluster. The disturbed optical morphology of all host galaxies supports the idea that the tails consist of H I that was initially pulled out of the galaxies-stellar body by tidal forces. Ram pressure was then able to further displace the weakly bound H I and give the tails their current direction, length, and velocity gradient.",
keywords = "Galaxies: clusters: individual: Fornax, Galaxies: evolution, Galaxies: interactions",
author = "P. Serra and MacCagni, {F. M.} and D. Kleiner and D. Moln{\'a}r and M. Ramatsoku and A. Loni and F. Loi and {De Blok}, {W. J.G.} and Bryan, {G. L.} and Dettmar, {R. J.} and Frank, {B. S.} and {Van Gorkom}, {J. H.} and F. Govoni and E. Iodice and J{\'o}zsa, {G. I.G.} and P. Kamphuis and R. Kraan-Korteweg and Loubser, {S. I.} and M. Murgia and Oosterloo, {T. A.} and R. Peletier and Pisano, {D. J.} and Smith, {M. W. L.} and Trager, {S. C.} and Verheijen, {M. A. W.}",
note = "Funding Information: This article is dedicated to the memory of our fellow MeerKAT Fornax Survey team member Sergio Colafrancesco. We are grateful to the full MeerKAT team for their work building, commissioning and operating MeerKAT, and for their support to the MeerKAT Fornax Survey. We acknowledge the outstanding support given by the Ilifu staff, in particular Jordan Collier and Jeremy Smith. The MeerKAT telescope is operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is a facility of the National Research Foundation, an agency of the Department of Science and Innovation. We acknowledge the use of the Ilifu cloud computing facility – www.ilifu.ac.za , a partnership between the University of Cape Town, the University of the Western Cape, the University of Stellenbosch, Sol Plaatje University, the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory. The Ilifu facility is supported by contributions from the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA – a partnership between the University of Cape Town, the University of Pretoria and the University of the Western Cape), the Computational Biology division at UCT and the Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa (DIRISA). This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 679627, “FORNAX”; and grant agreement no. 882793, “MeerGas”). The data of the MeerKAT Fornax Survey are reduced using the CARACal pipeline, partially supported by ERC Starting grant number 679627, MAECI Grant Number ZA18GR02, DST-NRF Grant Number 113121 as part of the ISARP Joint Research Scheme, and BMBF project 05A17PC2 for D-MeerKAT. Information about CARACal can be obtained online under the URL: https://caracal.readthedocs.io . At RUB, this research is supported by the BMBF project 05A20PC4 for D-MeerKAT. We acknowledge the support from the Ministero degli Affari Esteri della Cooperazione Internazionale – Direzione Generale per la Promozione del Sistema Paese Progetto di Grande Rilevanza ZA18GR02. This work is based on research supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Number 113121). FL acknowledges financial support from the Italian Ministry of University and Research – Project Proposal CIR01-00010. GLB acknowledges support from the NSF (AST-2108470, ACCESS MCA06N030), NASA TCAN award 80NSSC21K1053, and the Simons Foundation. DJP is supported through the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation. Funding Information: At RUB, this research is supported by the BMBF project 05A20PC4 for D-MeerKAT. We acknowledge the support from the Ministero degli Affari Esteri della Cooperazione Internazionale - Direzione Generale per la Promozione del Sistema Paese Progetto di Grande Rilevanza ZA18GR02. This work is based on research supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Number 113121). FL acknowledges financial support from the Italian Ministry of University and Research - Project Proposal CIR01-00010. GLB acknowledges support from the NSF (AST-2108470, ACCESS MCA06N030), NASA TCAN award 80NSSC21K1053, and the Simons Foundation. DJP is supported through the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Authors 2023.",
year = "2023",
month = may,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1051/0004-6361/202346071",
language = "English",
volume = "673",
journal = "Astronomy and Astrophysics",
issn = "0004-6361",
publisher = " EDP Sciences",
}