Survival of Massive Star-forming Galaxies in Cluster Cores Drives
  Gas-Phase Metallicity Gradients : The Effects of Ram Pressure Stripping
  Recent observations of galaxies in a cluster at z=0.35 show that their
integrated gas-phase metallicities increase with decreasing cluster-centric
distance. To test if ram pressure stripping (RPS) is the underlying cause, we
use a semi-analytic model to quantify the "observational bias" that RPS
introduces into the aperture-based metallicity measurements. We take integral
field spectroscopy of local galaxies, remove gas from their outer galactic
disks via RPS, and then conduct mock slit observations of cluster galaxies at
z=0.35. Our RPS model predicts a typical cluster-scale metallicity gradient of
-0.03 dex/Mpc. By removing gas from the outer galactic disks, RPS introduces a
mean metallicity enhancement of +0.02 dex at a fixed stellar mass. This gas
removal and subsequent quenching of star formation preferentially removes low
mass cluster galaxies from the observed star-forming population. As only the
more massive star-forming galaxies survive to reach the cluster core, RPS
produces a cluster-scale stellar mass gradient of -0.05 log(M_*/M_sun)/Mpc.
This mass segregation drives the predicted cluster-scale metallicity gradient
of -0.03 dex/Mpc. However, the effects of RPS alone can not explain the higher
metallicities measured in cluster galaxies at z=0.35. We hypothesize that
additional mechanisms including steep internal metallicity gradients and
self-enrichment due to gas strangulation are needed to reproduce our
observations at z=0.35.
