# Effects of Ram-Pressure from Intracluster Medium on the Star Formation Rate of Disk Galaxies in Clusters of Galaxies

## 1 Introduction

Clusters of galaxies in the redshift range of $`0.20.5`$ often exhibit an overabundance, relative to present-day clusters, of blue galaxies (Butcher & Oemler 1978). This star formation activity is often called the Butcher-Oemler effect (BOE). Although several mechanisms have been suggested to explain the effect, it is still not known which is most important. This is because the change of star formation rate (SFR) caused by these mechanisms has not been predicted physically and quantitatively, which makes the comparison between the theoretical predictions and observations difficult.

In contrast with the usual “black-box” approach of N-body simulations which has previously dominated the theoretical discussion in this field, Fujita (1998, Paper I) constructs a simple model to evaluate the change of SFR of a disk galaxy made by environmental effects in clusters of galaxies. He shows that tidal force from the potential well of a cluster can induce star formation activity of a galaxy in the central part of the cluster, but it is inconsistent with observations. He also shows that the increase of external thermal pressure when a galaxy plows into the intracluster medium (ICM) does not induce significant rise of the SFR. On the contrary, he shows that successive high-speed encounters between galaxies (galaxy harassment, see Moore et al. 1996) can make star formation active.

These arguments are based on the idea that the BOE is caused by blue starburst galaxies. Some recent observations, however, suggest that starbursts do not play a major role in driving cluster galaxy evolution at high redshift. Abraham et al. (1996) observe Abell 2390 and find that the galaxy population in the cluster changes gradually from a red, evolved, early-type population in the inner part of the cluster to a progressively blue, later-type population in the extensive outer envelope of the cluster. The radial change of colors and morphologies of galaxies is also observed in other clusters (e.g. Balogh et al. 1997; Rakos, Odell, & Schombert 1997 ; Oemler, Dressler, & Butcher 1997 ; Smail et al. 1998 ; Couch et al. 1998 ; van Dokkum et al. 1998). Abraham et al. (1996) speculate that the cluster has been built up gradually by the infall of blue field galaxies and that star formation has been truncated in infalling galaxies during the accretion process. The BOE is due to a high proportion of blue spiral galaxies which later turn to red S0 galaxies during the infall into the cluster center. Starbursts are not required to explain the galaxy spectra. In fact, high angular resolution images from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) show that significant fraction of blue galaxies in high redshift clusters are “normal” spiral galaxies (Oemler et al. 1997). Moreover, using HST data, Couch et al. (1998) claim that there are fewer disturbed galaxies than predicted by the galaxy harassment model. They suggest that ram-pressure stripping by hot ICM truncates star formation of blue disk galaxies and makes them red.

Motivated by these observations, the effects of ram-pressure from ICM on the SFR of a disk galaxy are investigated in this study. Previous theoretical studies show that in the central part of clusters, where the density of the ICM is large, ram-pressure from the ICM sweeps interstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies away (e.g. Gunn & Gott 1972; Takeda, Nulsen, & Fabian 1984; Gaetz, Salpeter, & Shaviv 1987). Thus, the SFR could decrease as Couch et al. (1998) suggest. On the other hand, ram-pressure could enhance star formation through the compression of ISM. For example, Bothun & Dressler (1986) suggest that the observational data of 3C295 cluster and Coma cluster are consistent with the picture of ram-pressure induced star formation. Therefore, the quantitative estimation of the SFR of a galaxy under pressure from the ICM is required to know whether the ram-pressure decreases or increases the SFR. The plan of this paper is as follows. In §2, the models of molecular gas and ram-pressure are described. In §3, the evolution of the SFR of a infalling galaxy is investigated. In §4, the results of the model calculations are compared with observations. The conclusions are summarized in §5.

## 2 Models

### 2.1 Molecular Clouds

The method for modeling the evolution of the molecular clouds in disk galaxies was extensively discussed in Paper I. In this subsection the main features of the method are briefly reviewed. Molecular clouds are divided according to their initial masses, that is, $`M_{\mathrm{min}}=M_1<\mathrm{}<M_i<\mathrm{}<M_{\mathrm{max}}`$, where the lower and upper cutoffs are $`M_{\mathrm{min}}=10^2\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{max}}=10^{8.5}\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, respectively, and their intervals are chosen so that $`\mathrm{log}(M_{i+1}/M_i)=0.01`$. Referring to the total mass of clouds whose initial masses are between $`M_i`$ and $`M_{i+1}`$ as $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{M}_i(t)`$, the rate of change is

$$\frac{d\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{M}_i(t)}{dt}=\stackrel{~}{f}_iS(t)\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{M}_i(t)}{\tau (M_i,P)},$$
(1)   
$$S(t)=S_{}(t)+S_{\mathrm{mol}}(t),$$
(2)   
where $`\stackrel{~}{f}_i`$ is the initial mass fraction of the molecular clouds whose initial masses are between $`M_i`$ and $`M_{i+1}`$, $`S_{}(t)`$ is the gas ejection rate of stars, $`S_{\mathrm{mol}}(t)`$ is the recycle rate of molecular gas, $`\tau (M_i,P)`$ is the destruction time of a molecular cloud with mass $`M_i`$ and pressure $`P`$. The initial mass function of molecular clouds is assumed to be $`N(M)M^2`$. Thus $`\stackrel{~}{f}_i`$ can be derived from this relation.

The gas ejection rate of stars is divided into two terms, $`S_{}(t)=S_s(t)+S_l`$. The gas ejection rate of stars with small lifetime is given by

$$S_s(t)=_{m_l}^{m_u}\psi (tt_m)R(m)\varphi (m)𝑑m,$$
(3)   
where $`m`$ is the stellar mass, $`\psi (t)`$ is the SFR, $`\varphi (m)`$ is the IMF expressed in the form of the mass fraction, $`R(m)`$ is the return mass fraction, and $`t_m`$ is the lifetime of stars with mass $`m`$. The slope of the IMF is taken to be 1.35 (Salpeter mass function). The upper and lower mass limits, $`m_u`$ and $`m_l`$, are taken to be $`50M_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`2.1M_{\mathrm{}}`$, respectively, although the lower limit of the IMF is $`0.08M_{\mathrm{}}`$. The gas ejection rate of stars with mass smaller than $`m_l`$, or $`S_l`$, is assumed to be constant. It is determined by the balance between the formation and destruction rate of molecular clouds (see Paper I).

The recycle rate of molecular gas is

$$S_{\mathrm{mol}}(t)=\underset{i}{}[1ϵ(M_i,P)]\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{M}_i(t)}{\tau (M_i,P)},$$
(4)   
where $`ϵ(M_i,P)`$ is the star formation efficiency of a molecular cloud with mass $`M_i`$ and pressure $`P`$. Note that $`S_{\mathrm{mol}}(t)`$ is identical with the evaporation rate of molecular gas by newborn stars. On simple assumptions, Elmegreen & Efremov (1997) derive $`ϵ(M_i,P)`$ and $`\tau (M_i,P)`$ ; their results are adopted hereafter.

The SFR is described by

$$\psi (t)=\underset{i}{}ϵ(M_i,P)\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{M}_i(t)}{\tau (M_i,P)}.$$
(5)   
Equation (1) can be solved if $`P`$ is given. In the next subsection, $`P`$ is determined for ram-pressure. Then the SFR is calculated from equations (1) $``$ (5).

### 2.2 Ram-pressure

As mentioned in §1, ram-pressure could induce more star formation in a disk galaxy through compression of the ISM, while it could decrease the SFR by stripping the ISM from a galaxy. In this subsection a model is constructed to determine which effect dominates.

In addition to molecular gas, warm HI gas is also considered, although equation (1) does not include it explicitly. It is assumed that the gas ejected from stars and the gas evaporated by young stars temporary become HI gas before they finally become molecular gas. The time-scale of the HI gas phase is assumed to be small in comparison with that of the galaxy evolution. Thus, the total mass of HI gas can be given by $`M_{\mathrm{HI}}\tau _{\mathrm{mol}}S/ϵ_{\mathrm{mol}}`$, where $`\tau _{\mathrm{mol}}`$ and $`ϵ_{\mathrm{mol}}`$ are the time-scale and efficiency of molecular cloud formation, respectively. If molecular cloud formation is triggered by density waves in the galactic disk, $`\tau _{\mathrm{mol}}`$ is nearly the ratio of the rotation time of the galaxy to the number of the arms. In this case, it can be assumed that $`\tau _{\mathrm{mol}}`$ is constant. If $`ϵ_{\mathrm{mol}}`$ is also constant, $`M_{\mathrm{HI}}S(t)`$. Note that $`S(t)`$ changes only $`20`$ % in the calculations in §3.

Ram-pressure from ICM is

$$P_{\mathrm{ram}}=\rho _{\mathrm{ICM}}v_{\mathrm{gal}}^2,$$
(6)   
where $`\rho _{\mathrm{ICM}}`$ is the mass density of ICM, and $`v_{\mathrm{gal}}`$ is the velocity of a galaxy relative to ICM. The ram-pressure is assumed to be the same both for molecular gas and for HI gas. For the HI gas, the restoring force per unit area due to the gravity of the disk of the galaxy is given by

$`F_{\mathrm{grav},\mathrm{HI}}`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi G\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{HI}}`$ (7)   
$`=`$ $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}^2R^1\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{HI}}`$ (8)   
$`=`$ $`2.1\times 10^{11}\mathrm{dyne}\mathrm{cm}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{v_{\mathrm{rot}}}{220\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{R}{10\mathrm{kpc}}}\right)^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{HI}}}{8\times 10^{20}m_\mathrm{H}\mathrm{cm}^2}}\right),`$ (9)   
where $`G`$ is the gravitational constant, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}`$ is the gravitational surface mass density, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{HI}}`$ is the surface density of the HI gas, $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ is the rotation velocity of the galaxy, $`R`$ is the radius of the disk, and $`m_\mathrm{H}`$ is the mass of hydrogen (Gunn & Gott 1972). Equation (8) is derived from the relation $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}=(2\pi G)^1v_{\mathrm{rot}}^2R^1`$ (Binney & Tremaine 1987). In the following section, $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}=220\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`R=10`$ kpc are used unless otherwise mentioned. Assuming $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{HI}}M_{\mathrm{HI}}`$, the surface density can be given by $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{HI}}=\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{HI},0}(S(t)/S_0)`$, where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{HI},0}`$ and $`S_0`$ are the initial surface density and SFR, respectively.

The HI gas is stripped when

$$P_{\mathrm{ram}}>F_{\mathrm{grav},\mathrm{HI}}.$$
(10)   
After the HI gas is stripped, instead of equation (2), $`S(t)`$ is fixed at zero in equation (1).

Molecular clouds are also stripped when

$$P_{\mathrm{ram}}>2\pi G\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{mol}},$$
(11)   
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{mol}}`$ is the column density of each molecular cloud and is given by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{mol}}=190\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{pc}^2\left(\frac{P_{\mathrm{ram}}}{10^4k_\mathrm{B}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{K}}\right)^{1/2},$$
(12)   
regardless of the mass (Elmegreen 1989). Since $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{mol}}>\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{HI}}`$, the molecular clouds are stripped after the HI gas is stripped.

## 3 Evolution of Radially Infalling Galaxy

The distribution of the gravitational matter of a model cluster is

$$\rho (r)=\frac{\rho _0}{(1+r^2/r_c^2)^{3/2}},$$
(13)   
where $`r`$ is the distance from the cluster center, $`\rho _0`$ is the mass density at the center, and $`r_c(=400\mathrm{kpc})`$ is the core radius of the cluster. The central mass density is given by

$`\rho _0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9}{4\pi Gr_c^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{B}T}{\mu m_\mathrm{H}}}`$ (14)   
$`=`$ $`9.0\times 10^{26}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3\left({\displaystyle \frac{r_c}{400\mathrm{kpc}}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{B}T}{8\mathrm{keV}}}\right),`$ (15)   
where $`k_\mathrm{B}`$ is the Boltzmann constant, $`T`$ is the effective temperature of the cluster, and $`\mu (=0.6)`$ is the mean molecular weight. Note that recent numerical simulations support a steeper core profile (e.g. Navarro, Frenk, & White 1997). However, even if this profile is adopted instead of equation (13), the following results does not change significantly (see Figure 2 in Paper I).

The gas distribution is

$$\rho _{\mathrm{gas}}(r)=\frac{\rho _{\mathrm{gas},0}}{1+r^2/r_c^2},$$
(16)   
where $`\rho _{\mathrm{gas},0}`$ is the central gas density. The pressure of molecular clouds is given by

$$P=\mathrm{max}(P_{\mathrm{ram}}+P_{\mathrm{stat}},P_{\mathrm{}}),$$
(17)   
where $`P_{\mathrm{}}=3\times 10^4\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{K}`$ is the pressure from random motion of the clouds in the galaxy and $`P_{\mathrm{stat}}=\rho _{\mathrm{gas}}k_\mathrm{B}T/\mu m_\mathrm{H}`$ is the static pressure from ICM.

The initial surface density of HI gas and the initial SFR of the model galaxy are $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{HI},0}=8\times 10^{20}m_\mathrm{H}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ and $`S_0=6\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, respectively. The parameters for the gas distribution of model clusters are summarized in Table 1. They are the typical ones obtained by X-ray satellites (e.g. Jones & Forman 1984 ; White, Jones, & Forman 1997). The initial position, $`r_0`$, and velocity, $`v_{\mathrm{gal},0}`$, of the model galaxy mean that the galaxy begins to fall from where the mass density of the cluster is 100 times the critical density of the Universe (for $`H_0=75\mathrm{k}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$). Moreover, if $`P(t=0)`$ is given, the initial total mass of molecular clouds, $`M_{\mathrm{mol},0}`$, and the gas ejection rate of stars with long lifetime, $`S_l`$, can be determined so that the formation and destruction rate of molecular clouds are balanced at $`t=0`$ (see Paper I). For the parameters above, $`M_{\mathrm{mol},0}=2.5\times 10^9\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ (except for models A1 and B1), $`M_{\mathrm{mol},0}=2.1\times 10^9\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ (models A1 and B1), and $`S_l5\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. In models B1–B4, the stripping of HI gas and molecular gas are ignored for comparison.

Figure 1 shows the pressure evolution. As is shown, they strongly depend on the gas density and effective temperature of the cluster because of equation (6) and the dependence of galaxy velocity on the depth of potential well. Figure 2 shows the SFR of a model galaxy. The calculations continue even after the galaxy passes the cluster center. The SFR rises to twice its initial value at most. The maximum of the SFR can be explained by the relation between pressure and destruction time of molecular clouds (Figure 4 in Elmegreen & Efremov 1997), which is used in equation (1). Model B2 is taken as an example. As a galaxy gets closer to the cluster’s center, the ram-pressure increases. Thus, the destruction time of molecular clouds decreases. When $`P10P_{\mathrm{}}`$ (at $`r400`$ kpc), the destruction times of all molecular clouds ($`<10^{8.5}\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$) become less than the time passed since $`P`$ started to rise significantly ($`2\times 10^8`$ yr, see Figure 1a and 4). Therefore, the pressure increase has affected all the clouds by this time. In fact, the ratio of the initial total mass of molecular clouds, $`2.5\times 10^9\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ to the time, $`2\times 10^8`$ yr, corresponds to the peak of SFR, $`13\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. Note that the total mass of molecular clouds at $`r=400`$ kpc is not zero (Figure 3a). This is because the stars with long lifetime supply additional gas.

The SFR rapidly drops in the central region of a high-temperature and/or gas-rich cluster when ram-pressure stripping is considered (models A1-A3). This is because HI gas is stripped and the formation of molecular clouds ceases. For example, the condition (10) is satisfied for $`r<1.2`$ Mpc in model A1. In that region, without the supply ($`S(t)=0`$ in equation ), part of the molecular gas is consumed to form stars and the rest is stripped soon after being evaporated by newborn stars. The larger the density and temperature of the model cluster, the greater the effect of ram-pressure, so that gas can be stripped and the SFR drops further out in the cluster (Figure 1). If surface density of the galaxy is smaller, the condition (10) is satisfied at larger radius. In that case, the SFR begins to decrease earlier. In model A4, the condition (10) is never satisfied, that is, the HI gas is not stripped. In this model, the SFR does not change significantly because neither ram-pressure compression nor stripping is effective. Note that the ram-pressure cannot strip molecular clouds in all the models considered here.

Although the SFR in models A1–A4 is that of all the galaxy, it is not very different from that of the disk component because most gas resides in the disk and because the parameter $`R=10`$ kpc is the typical value of disk radius. The SFR of the bulge component can be considered separately as follows. The normalized SFR, $`\psi /S_0`$, does not depend on $`S_0`$, if the formation and destruction rate of molecular clouds are initially balanced. Thus the normalized SFR in models B1–B4 which do not include the effect of the ram-pressure stripping corresponds to that of the galactic bulge where restoring force is large (see equation ). For example, at $`R=10`$ kpc, the ram-pressure stripping occurs when $`P10P_{\mathrm{}}`$ (models A1–A3). Thus, for $`R<0.5`$ kpc, it occurs when $`P200P_{\mathrm{}}`$ if $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{HI}}`$ are identical. That is, the ram-pressure stripping does not occur in the bulge (Figure 1). In models B1–B4, after $`\psi /S_0`$ rises only twice as much as the initial value, it begins to decrease due to the shortage of molecular gas (Figure 3). However, the star formation does not cease even if the galaxy reaches the center of the cluster. After the galaxy passes the center, the SFR continues to decrease, although the rate is slow (Figure 2).

## 4 Discussion

In this section, the results in §3 are compared with the recent observations of distant clusters in order to investigate whether ram-pressure is really responsible for the evolution of galaxies in clusters. Most distant clusters observed in detail are rich ones, and their temperatures are large ($`k_\mathrm{B}T=610`$ keV). Although the gas density distributions of most of the clusters are not known, they are assumed to be almost the same as those of nearby clusters. This is supported by the fact that there is no evidence for the evolution of luminosity-temperature relation among clusters at $`z0.4`$ (Mushotzky & Scharf 1997). Thus, the models of $`k_\mathrm{B}T=8`$ keV in §3 can be applied to the comparison.

Using the population synthesis code made by Kodama & Arimoto (1997), the evolutions of color ($`BV`$) and B-band luminosity in models A1 and B1 are calculated (Figure 5 and 6) on the assumption that $`\psi (t)=S_0`$ for $`10<t<0`$ Gyr. The evolutions in models A2 and B2 are similar to those in models A1 and B1, although the color and luminosity start to change later. Model A1 shows the color and luminosity evolutions for a infalling disk galaxy. In that model, ram-pressure sweeps the ISM away at $`tt_{\mathrm{cent}}=5\times 10^8`$ yr, where $`t_{\mathrm{cent}}`$ is the time when the galaxy reaches the cluster center ($`t_{\mathrm{cent}}1.2`$ Gyr). Before ram-pressure stripping occurs, the changes of color and luminosity are very small. This indicates that the ram-pressure compression does not induce observable star formation activity because the intrinsic scatter of color and luminosity among galaxies are larger. After the stripping occurs, the color of the model galaxy rapidly becomes red and approaches the color of passively evolving stellar system such as elliptical galaxies (Figure 5). Thus, the model predicts that the fraction of blue disk galaxies is small in the central part of rich clusters if significant fraction of the galaxies have infallen from outside field.

Recent HST observations indicate that there are proportionally more spiral galaxies and fewer E/S0 galaxies in the high-redshift clusters ($`z=0.30.5`$) than in nearby clusters (Oemler et al. 1997 ; Dressler et al. 1997 ; Couch et al. 1998) . Thus, some spiral galaxies may have been transformed into E/S0 galaxies by $`z=0`$. This morphological transformation may be explained by the models in §3 as follows. The luminosity of disk component of the model galaxy is approximately proportional to that of model A1 as noted in §3. Figure 6 shows the luminosity in model A1 becomes 40% of the initial value after the model galaxy passes the cluster center. On the other hand, the bulge of a disk galaxy generally has little gas, and most of light from the bulge component is dominated by passively evolving stellar system. This means that the luminosity of the bulge is not affected by ram-pressure very much. Even if the bulge contains a large amount gas, the color and luminosity of the bulge does not change significantly because in this case, the bulge evolution follows model B1 (Figure 5 and 6). Therefore, the bulge to disk luminosity ratio (B/D) changes when the galaxy radially infalls into the cluster center. For example if $`\mathrm{B}/\mathrm{D}=0.2`$ initially, it increases to $`\mathrm{B}/\mathrm{D}=0.5`$ after the galaxy passes the cluster center. This means Sb galaxies turn into S0 galaxies (Solanes et al. 1989). Therefore, the fraction of S0 galaxy should be large in the central region of clusters. Moreover, the number of S0 galaxy should increase in the all cluster as more field spiral galaxies accrete to the cluster.

In summary, the ram-pressure from ICM indeed truncates star formation activity in disk galaxies as Abraham et al. (1996) speculate. Moreover, the above arguments show that if clusters have been built up by the infall of blue field disk galaxies, the ram-pressure model can explain the radial color and morphology distribution observed in distant clusters, that is, the galaxy population in the cluster changes gradually from a red, evolved, early-type population in the inner part of the cluster to a progressively blue, later-type population in the extensive outer envelope of the cluster. The BOE can be explained by the high proportion of the blue infalling galaxies. However, several observational results may not be explained by our simple ram-pressure model. In the rest of this section, a few examples are discussed.

First, Valluri & Jog (1991) have shown that the observed relationship between HI deficiency and size is opposite to that expected from the ram-pressure model; they indicate that the fraction of HI-deficient galaxies increases with optical size over most of the size range. On the other hand, other observations show that HI-deficient galaxies are concentrated in the central part of clusters (e.g. Cayatte et al. 1990). This is consistent with the ram-pressure model. Valluri & Jog (1991) suggest that the disagreement results from mass segregation in clusters. If the larger galaxies are more concentrated toward the cluster core, they would be more severely affected by the ICM than smaller galaxies. Another solution may exist. Since the luminosity of dwarf galaxies decreases after ram-pressure truncates the star formation, the dwarf galaxies may become too dark to be observed in cluster cores.

Second, Lea & Henry (1988) report that the percentage of blue objects in clusters seems to increase with the X-ray luminosity for the most luminous clusters, and no correlation is apparent at low luminosity. If ram-pressure is the only mechanism that drives the evolution of galaxies in clusters, the fraction of blue galaxies must always be high in low X-ray luminosity clusters, which usually have low temperatures, because ram-pressure stripping is not effective (see Model A4 in §3).

Finally we would like to remark that although the effect of ram-pressure is important for cluster evolution, it cannot be denied that other processes, such as galaxy harassment, affect some galaxies in clusters.

## 5 Conclusions

We have quantitatively investigated the effect of ram-pressure on the star formation rate of a radially infalling disk galaxy in a cluster using a simple model of molecular cloud evolution. The primary results of the study can be summarized as follows:

1. Since ram-pressure compresses the molecular gas, the star formation rate of a disk galaxy increases to twice its initial value at most as the galaxy approaches the center of a cluster with high gas density and deep potential well, or with a central pressure of $`10^2\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{keV}`$. However, this increase does not affect the color of the galaxy significantly.

2. When the galaxy approaches closer to the cluster center ($`1`$ Mpc from the center), the star formation rate of the disk component rapidly drops due to ram-pressure stripping. As a result, the galaxy turns red and the disk becomes dark. However, the star formation rate of the bulge component does not significantly change.

3. On the other hand, in a cluster with low gas density and shallow potential well, or the central pressure of $`10^3\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{keV}`$, the change of star formation rate is small. In these clusters neither ram-pressure compression nor stripping is effective.

4. The color and luminosity change induced by the ram-pressure effects can explain the color and morphology distribution and the evolution of galaxies observed in high-redshift clusters if the clusters have been built up by accretion of field spiral galaxies.

We would like to thank I. Smail for his useful comments. We are also grateful to an anonymous referee for improving this paper. This work was supported in part by the JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists.