Relative contributions of environmental mechanisms to dE evolution

Determine the relative contributions of ram-pressure stripping, tidal harassment, and starvation in shaping the stellar populations and structural features of early-type dwarf galaxies (dEs).

Background

Early-type dwarf galaxies (dEs) are predominantly found in dense environments such as clusters and groups, implicating environmental processes in their formation and quenching. Multiple mechanisms—ram-pressure stripping, tidal harassment, and starvation—can act to remove or deplete gas and reshape stellar components, yet their relative roles have not been conclusively established.

Clarifying the relative importance of these mechanisms is central to interpreting observed dE properties (morphologies, color profiles, stellar populations) across environments and remains a key uncertainty highlighted in the introduction of the paper.

References

Despite this, the relative contributions of different environmental mechanisms—such as RPS, harassment, or starvation—in shaping the stellar populations and structural features of dEs remain unclear.

— An isolated early-type dwarf galaxy that ran away from the group environment  (2508.20459 - Paudel et al., 28 Aug 2025) in Section 1: Introduction (second paragraph)

Yet whether such environmental effects leave a clear observational imprint on the present-day stellar population properties of these galaxies remains an open question.

— Diffuse Dwarf Galaxies in Galaxy Clusters: I. Stellar Populations and Radial Gradients  (2608.17375 - Levitskiy et al., 18 Aug 2026) in Section 3.1, “Cluster environment dependence”