The star formation histories of galaxies in different stages of pre-processing in the Fornax A group

ABSTRACT We study the recent star formation histories of 10 galaxies in the Fornax A galaxy group, on the outskirts of the Fornax cluster. The group galaxies are gas-rich, and their neutral atomic hydrogen (H i) was studied in detail with observations from the MeerKAT telescope. This allowed them to be classified into different stages of pre-processing (early, ongoing, advanced). We use long-slit spectra obtained with the South African Large Telescope (SALT) to analyse stellar population indicators to constrain quenching time-scales and to compare these to the H i gas content of the galaxies. The H α equivalent width, EW(H α), suggest that the pre-processing stage is closely related to the recent (