Spectroscopy of Luminous Compact Blue Galaxies in Distant Clusters II.
  Physical Properties of dE Progenitor Candidates
  Luminous Compact Blue Galaxies (LCBGs) are an extreme star-bursting
population of galaxies that were far more common at earlier epochs than today.
Based on spectroscopic and photometric measurements of LCBGs in massive (M
>10^15 M_sun), intermediate redshift (0.5 < z < 0.9) galaxy clusters, we
present their rest-frame properties including star-formation rate, dynamical
mass, size, luminosity, and metallicity. The appearance of these small, compact
galaxies in clusters at intermediate redshift helps explain the observed
redshift evolution in the size-luminosity relationship among cluster galaxies.
In addition, we find the rest-frame properties of LCBGs appearing in galaxy
clusters are indistinguishable from field LCBGs at the same redshift. Up to 35%
of the LCBGs show significant discrepancies between optical and infrared
indicators of star formation, suggesting that star formation occurs in obscured
regions. Nonetheless, the star formation for LCBGs shows a decrease toward the
center of the galaxy clusters. Based on their position and velocity, we
estimate that up to 10% of cluster LCBGs are likely to merge with another
cluster galaxy. Finally, the observed properties and distributions of the LCBGs
in these clusters lead us to conclude that we are witnessing the quenching of
the progenitors of dwarf elliptical galaxies that dominate the number density
of present-epoch galaxy clusters.
