Jellyfish galaxies in magnetic fields: insights from numerical simulations

Journal article

Jellyfish galaxies provide direct evidence of ram pressure stripping in cluster environments. We investigate the role of magnetic fields in the formation of jellyfish galaxies with a multiphase interstellar medium (ISM) using radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulations. We impose magnetized (magnetohydrodynamic; MHD) and nonmagnetized (hydrodynamic; HD) winds on the gas-rich dwarf galaxies containing the magnetized or nonmagnetized ISM. The MHD winds strip the disk gas more effectively than the HD winds because of the magnetic force acting against the local density gradient, which results in remarkably different ram pressure stripped features. The magnetic fields induced by the MHD winds generate a strong magnetic pressure, which forms smoothed disks and tail gas features. Since the stripped ISM in MHD wind cases travels while being nearly isolated from the intracluster medium (ICM), the stripped ISM mostly forms stars within 20 kpc of the galactic disks. In contrast, nonmagnetized winds facilitate the efficient mixing of the stripped ISM with the ICM, resulting in the formation of abundant warm clouds that cool and collapse in the distant (∼50–100 kpc) tails at times of a few hundred Myr. Consequently, distant tail star formation occurs only in the HD wind runs. Finally, despite the different tail features, the star formation rates in the disk remain similar owing to the interplay between the increased gas stripping and the gas density increase in the disks of the MHD wind runs. These results suggest that the magnetized ICM may have a significant influence on jellyfish galaxies, whereas the magnetized ISM play a minor role.

Authors: Lee, J; Kimm, T; Blaizot, JRM; Devriendt, J; Martin-Alvarez, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Journal: Astrophysical Journal
• Volume: 996
• Issue: 2
• Article number: 130
• Publication date: 2026-01-09
• Acceptance date: 2025-11-17
• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae21c4
• EISSN: 1538-4357
• ISSN: 0004-637X
• Language: English