Galaxy mergers and the creation of cluster S0 galaxies

When and how red S0 galaxies were formed is a longstanding and noteworthy problem. Recent morphological and photometric studies of S0s in distant clusters of galaxies have revealed a smaller S0 population fraction and the existence of S0s with bluer colours, which suggests that some physical processes drive continuous creation of S0s with younger stellar populations in higher-redshift clusters. We propose here that the major mechanism for S0 creation is galaxy merging between two spirals of unequal masses. Our numerical simulations demonstrate that galaxy merging exhausts a large amount of the interstellar medium of two gas-rich spirals owing to the moderately enhanced star formation, and subsequently transforms the two into a single gas-poor S0 galaxy with structure and kinematics strikingly similar to those observed. This secondary S0 formation via unequal-mass merging thus provides an evolutionary link between a larger number of blue spirals observed in intermediate-redshift clusters and the red S0s prevalent in present-day ones.