Early results from the coma legacy IFU Survey (CLIFS): Ram pressure induced shocks and ionization in jellyfish tails

Foster, Lauren M., Roberts, Ian D., Parker, Laura C., Davis, Timothy A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4932-9379, Ignesti, Alessandro, McGee, Sean, Zabel, Nikki, Sun, Ming and van Weeren, Reinout J. 2026. Early results from the coma legacy IFU Survey (CLIFS): Ram pressure induced shocks and ionization in jellyfish tails. The Astrophysical Journal 999 (2) , 164. 10.3847/1538-4357/ae41c0

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Abstract

Jellyfish galaxies, which exhibit tails of gas opposite to their direction of motion, are a galaxy population showcasing the most extreme effects of ram pressure stripping (RPS). We present the emission line properties of a preliminary sample of five jellyfish galaxies in the Coma cluster, observed with the WEAVE Large-IFU as part of the Coma Legacy IFU Survey (CLIFS). When complete, CLIFS will form a sample of 29 jellyfish galaxies in Coma, selected based on the presence of one-sided tails in the radio continuum, enabling a comprehensive picture of the effects of ram pressure on galaxies in the Coma cluster. We extract emission line properties and confirm consistency between disk fluxes measured from WEAVE and MaNGA for galaxies with overlapping disk coverage between surveys. Comparing resolved radio and Hα-based star formation rates, we find that, in contrast to the disk, the dominant source of tail emission is not star formation. We find evidence for diffuse ionized gas excited by RPS-driven shocks in the tails, as indicated by: (1) LINER-like tail emission with the [O i]/Hα Baldwin-Phillips-Terlevich diagnostic; (2) enhanced [O ii]/Hα ratios in the tails relative to the disks; and (3) similarly elevated emission line velocities and velocity dispersions in the tails with respect to the disks. These results demonstrate that ram pressure driven shocks dominate the ionized emission in jellyfish galaxy tails.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Physics and Astronomy
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Type: cc-by
Publisher:	American Astronomical Society
ISSN:	0004-637X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	9 March 2026
Date of Acceptance:	2 February 2026
Last Modified:	09 Mar 2026 11:01
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/185582

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