Evidence that pre-processing in filaments drives the anisotropic quenching of satellite galaxies in massive clusters

Harry Stephenson, John Stott, Joseph Butler, Molly Webster, Jonathan Head

Published 2024-12-10Version 1

We use a sample of 11 $z\approx0.2-0.5$ ($z_{\text{med.}} = 0.36$) galaxy clusters from the Cluster Lensing And Supernovae survey with Hubble (CLASH) to analyse the angular dependence of satellite galaxy colour $(B-R)$ and passive galaxy fractions ($f_{\text{pass.}}$) with respect to the major axis of the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG). This phenomenon has been dubbed as \say{anisotropic quenching}, \say{angular conformity} or \say{angular segregation}, and it describes how satellite galaxies along the major axis of the BCG are more likely to be quenched than those along the minor axis. We are the first to measure anisotropic quenching out to $3R_{200}$ ($R_{200\text{, med.}} \approx 933$ \si{\kilo\parsec}) from the cluster centre. A highly significant anisotropic quenching signal is found for satellites with a peak in $(B-R)$ and $f_{\text{pass.}}$ along the major axis. We find that the anisotropic quenching signal is significant out to at least $2.5R_{200}$, and the amplitude of the sinusoidal fit peaks at $\approx1.25R_{200}$. This is the first time the radial peak of the anisotropic quenching signal has been measured directly. Finally, we find that $f_{\text{pass.}}$ is significantly higher along the major axis for fixed values of local surface density. The density drops less rapidly along the major axis and so satellites spend more time being pre-processed here compared to the minor axis. We therefore conclude that pre-processing in large-scale structure, and not active galactic nuclei (AGN) outflows, is the likely cause of the anisotropic quenching signal in massive galaxy clusters, however this may not be the cause in lower mass halos.