We study galaxies undergoing ram pressure stripping in the Virgo cluster to examine whether we can identify any discernible trend in their star formation activity. We first use 48 galaxies undergoing different stages of stripping based on Hi morphology, Hi deficiency, and relative extent to the stellar disk, from the VIVA survey. We then employ a new scheme for galaxy classification which combines Hi mass fractions and locations in projected phase space, resulting in a new sample of 365 galaxies. We utilize a variety of star formation tracers, which include g - r, WISE [3.4]-[12] colors, and starburstiness that are defined by stellar mass and star formation rates to compare the star formation activity of galaxies at different stripping stages. We find no clear evidence for enhancement in the integrated star formation activity of galaxies undergoing early to active stripping. We are instead able to capture the overall quenching of star formation activity with increasing degree of ram pressure stripping, in agreement with previous studies. Our results suggest that if there is any ram pressure stripping induced enhancement, it is at best locally modest, and galaxies undergoing enhancement make up a small fraction of the total sample. Our results also indicate that it is possible to trace galaxies at different stages of stripping with the combination of Hi gas content and location in projected phase space, which can be extended to other galaxy clusters that lack high-resolution Hi imaging.

In the molecular cloud G33.92+0.11A, massive stars are forming sequentially in dense cores, probably due to interaction with accreted gas. Cold dense gas, which is likely the pristine gas of the cloud, is traced by DCN line and dust continuum emission. Clear chemical differences were observed in different source locations and for different velocity components in the same line of sight. Several distinct gas components coexist in the cloud: the pristine cold gas, the accreted dense gas, and warm turbulent gas, in addition to the star-forming dense clumps. Filaments of accreted gas occur in the northern part of the A1 and A5 clumps, and the velocity gradient along these features suggests that the gas is falling toward the cloud and may have triggered the most recent star formation. The large concentration of turbulent gas in the A2 clump seems to have formed mainly through disturbances from the outside.

Using ALMA observations of the 13CN and DCN lines in the massive star-forming region G33.92+0.11A, we investigate the CN/HCN abundance ratio, which serves as a tracer of photodissociation chemistry, over the whole observed region. Even considering the uncertainties in calculating the abundance ratio, we find high ratios (》1) in large parts of the source, especially in the outer regions of star-forming clumps A1, A2, and A5. Regions with high CN/HCN ratios coincide with the in infows of accreted gas suggested by Liu et al. (2015). We conclude that we found strong evidence for interaction between the dense gas clumps and the accreted ambient gas which may have sequentially triggered the star formation in these clumps.

There is much observational evidence that active star formation is taking place in the Hii regions Sh 2-255 – 257. We present a photometric study of this star forming region (SFR) using imaging data obtained in passbands from the optical to the mid-infrared, in order to study the star formation process. A total of 218 members were identified using various selection criteria based on their observational properties. The SFR is reddened by at least E(B −V ) = 0.8 mag, and the reddening law toward the region is normal (RV = 3.1). From the zero-age main sequence fitting method it is confirmed that the SFR is 2.1 ± 0.3 kpc from the Sun. The median age of the identified members is estimated to be about 1.3 Myr from a comparison of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HRD) with stellar evolutionary models. The initial mass function (IMF) is derived from the HRD and the near-infrared (J, J −H) color-magnitude diagram. The slope of the IMF is about 􀀀 = −1.6 ± 0.1, which is slightly steeper than that of the Salpeter/Kroupa IMF. It implies that low-mass star formation is dominant in the SFR. The sum of the masses of all the identified members provides the lower limit of the cluster mass (169M⊙). We also analyzed the spectral energy distribution (SED) of pre-main sequence stars using the SED fitting tool of Robitaille et al., and confirm that there is a significant discrepancy between stellar mass and age obtained from two different methods based on the SED fitting tool and the HRD.

The galaxy cluster is an important object for investigating the large scale structure and evolution of galaxies. Recent wide and deep near-IR surveys provide an opportunity to search for galaxy clusters in the high redshift universe. We have identified candidate clusters of 0.8< z <1.2 from the 25 deg2 SA22 field using an optical-near-IR dataset from merged UKIDSS DXS, IMS and CFHTLS catalogs. Using these candidates, we investigate the star forming activity of member galaxies. Consequently, at z ~1, the star forming activity of cluster galaxies is not distinguishable from those of field galaxies, which is different from members in local clusters. This means the environmental effect becomes more important for M* > 1010M⊙ galaxies at z <1.

We studied a cluster family in the northern part of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) a group of clusters near NGC 3324 (Tr 15, NGC 3293, Loden 165, Loden 153 and IC 2581). We used data from UCAC4 to determine the cluster's membership and the near infrared CMDs of each cluster. We analyzed the spatial density and elongation as a function of radius for each cluster and found a possible interaction between NGC 3293 and Loden153. However, the shape distortion of NGC 3324 cannot be evaluated because of the inhomogenity in the coverage of UCAC4 in the east part of NGC 3324.

We investigate the role of galaxy environment in the evolution of individual galaxies through the AKARI observations of the merging galaxy cluster A2255. MIR diagnostics using N3-S11 colors are adopted to select star-forming galaxies and galaxies in transition between star-forming galaxies and quiescent galaxies. We do not find particular enhancement of star formation rates as a function of galaxy environment, reflected in cluster-centric distance and local surface density of galaxies. Instead, the locations of intermediate MIR-excess galaxies (-1.2 < N3 - S11 < 0.2) show that star-forming galaxies are transformed into passive galaxies in the substructures of A2255, where the local surface density of galaxies is relatively high.

We present a photometric study of the star cluster system in the merging galaxy NGC 1487, based on the BI photometry obtained from the F450W and F814W images in the HST /WFPC2 archive data. We have found about 560 star cluster candidates in NGC 1487, using the morphological parameters of the objects. We have investigated several photometric characteristics of the clusters: color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs), color distribution, spatial distribution, age, size and luminosity function. The CMD of the bright clusters with 18.5 < B < 24 mag in NGC 1487 shows three major populations of clusters: a blue cluster population with (B-I) ≤ 0.45, an intermediate-color cluster population with 0.45<(B-I) ≤ 1.55, and a red cluster population with (B - I) > 1.55. The intermediate-color population is the most dominant among the three populations. The brightest clusters in the blue and intermediate- color populations are as bright as B ≈18 mag (MB ≈ -12 mag), which are three magnitudes brighter than those in the red population. The blue and intermediate-color clusters are strongly concentrated on the bright condensations, while the red clusters are relatively more scattered over the galaxy. The CMD of these clusters is found to be remarkably similar to that of the clusters in the famous interacting system M51. From this we suggest that the intermediate-color clusters were, probably, formed during the merging process which occurred about 500 Myrs ago.