The effect of the environment on the gas kinematics and the structure of
  distant galaxies
  With the aim of distinguishing between possible physical mechanisms acting on
galaxies when they fall into clusters, we study the properties of the gas and
the stars in a sample of 422 emission-line galaxies from EDisCS in different
environments up to z~1. We identify galaxies with kinematical disturbances
(from emission-lines in their 2D spectra) and find that they are more frequent
in clusters than in the field. The fraction of kinematically-disturbed galaxies
increases with cluster velocity dispersion and decreases with distance from the
cluster centre, but remains constant with projected galaxy density. We also
studied morphological disturbances in the stellar light from HST/F814W images,
finding that the fraction of morphologically disturbed galaxies is similar in
all environments. Moreover, there is little correlation between the presence of
kinematically-disturbed gas and morphological distortions. We also study the
dependence of the Tully-Fisher relation, star formation, and extent of the
emission on environment, and conclude that the gas disks in cluster galaxies
have been truncated, and therefore their star formation is more concentrated
than in low-density environments. If spirals transform into S0s, our findings
imply that the physical mechanism transforming cluster galaxies efficiently
disturbs the star-forming gas and reduces their specific star formation rate.
Moreover, this star-forming gas is either removed more efficiently from the
outskirts of the galaxies or is driven towards the centre (or both), helping to
build the bulges of S0s. These results, in addition to the finding that the
transformation mechanism does not seem to induce strong morphological
disturbances on the galaxies, suggest that the physical processes involved are
related to the intracluster medium, with galaxy-galaxy interactions playing
only a limited role in clusters.
