Deep Impact: Molecular Gas Properties under Strong Ram Pressure Probed by High-Resolution Radio Interferometric Observations

Ram pressure stripping due to the intracluster medium (ICM) is an important environmental process, which causes star formation quenching by effectively removing cold interstellar gas from galaxies in dense environments. The evidence of diffuse atomic gas stripping has been reported in several HI imaging studies. However, it is still under debate whether molecular gas (i.e., a more direct ingredient for star formation) can be also affected and/or stripped by ram pressure. The goal of this thesis is to understand the impact of ram pressure on the molecular gas content of cluster galaxies and hence star formation activity. To achieve this, we conducted a series of detailed studies on the molecular gas properties of three Virgo spiral galaxies with clear signs of active HI gas stripping (NGC 4330, NGC 4402, and NGC 4522) based on high-resolution CO data obtained from the Submillimeter Array (SMA) and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). As a result, we find the evidence that the molecular gas disk also gets affected by ram pressure in similar ways as HI even well inside of the stellar disk. In addition, we detected extraplanar 13CO clumps in one of the sample, which is the first case ever reported in ram pressure stripped galaxies. By analyzing multi-wavelength data (e.g., Hα, UV, HI, and CO), we discuss detailed processes of how ram pressure affects star formation activities and hence evolution of cluster galaxies. We also discuss the origin of extraplanar 13CO, and how ram pressure can potentially contribute to the chemical evolution of the ICM.