Abstract
We study the influence of cluster environment on the chemical evolution of
spiral galaxies in the Pegasus I cluster. We determine the gas-phase heavy
element abundances of six galaxies in Pegasus derived from H II region spectra
obtained from integral-field spectroscopy. These abundances are analyzed in the
context of Virgo, whose spirals are known to show increasing interstellar
metallicity as a function of H I deficiency. The galaxies in the Pegasus
cluster, despite its lower density and velocity dispersion, also display gas
loss due to ISM-ICM interaction, albeit to a lesser degree. Based on the
abundances of 3 H I deficient spirals and 2 H I normal spirals, we observe a
heavy element abundance offset of +0.13\pm0.07 dex for the H I deficient
galaxies. This abundance differential is consistent with the differential
observed in Virgo for galaxies with a similar H I deficiency, and we observe a
correlation between log(O/H) and the H I deficiency parameter DEF for the two
clusters analyzed together. Our results suggest that similar environmental
mechanisms are driving the heavy element enhancement in both clusters.
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