A Tale of Tails: Star Formation and Stripping in Jellyfish Galaxies in the Strong Lensing Cluster MACS J0138.0-2155

We investigate the effects of ram-pressure stripping on four galaxies within the massive, strong-lensing cluster MACS-J0138.0-2155 ( z = 0.336 ). Of these, three are classified as jellyfish galaxies, with significant elongated tails. Two of these jellyfish galaxies, J1 and J2, are in a late-stage of stripping and show post-starburst features within their disk regions with star formation only in the tails. Using VLT/MUSE integral field spectroscopic data, we spatially resolve the stellar and gas kinematics to examine extraplanar gas associated with ram-pressure stripping. We complement this analysis with optical and near-infrared imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope to visualize the galactic structure of each member. The jellyfish galaxies are all blue-shifted with respect to the cluster and show velocity gradients of a few hundred k m s − 1 across their tails. From the resolved gas kinematics, we derive H α -based star formation rates; these are generally low reaching a maximum of approximately 0.49 M ⊙ yr − 1 k p c − 2 in galaxy J3. We also report the kinematics for galaxy J4, which lies in the foreground of the cluster but close in projection to one of the lensed arcs.