scholarly journals Identification of filamentary structures in the environment of superclusters of galaxies in the Local Universe

2020 ◽  
Vol 637 ◽  
pp. A31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Santiago-Bautista ◽  
César A. Caretta ◽  
Héctor Bravo-Alfaro ◽  
Etienne Pointecouteau ◽  
Heinz Andernach

Context. Characterization of the internal structure of the superclusters of galaxies (walls, filaments, and knots where the clusters are located) is crucial for understanding the formation of the large-scale structure and for outlining the environment where galaxies evolved in the last few gigayears. Aims. We aim to detect the compact regions of high relative density (clusters and rich groups of galaxies), to map the elongated structures of low relative density (filaments, bridges, and tendrils of galaxies), and to characterize the galaxies that populate the filaments and study the environmental effects they are subject to. Methods. We used optical galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts from the SDSS-DR13 inside rectangular boxes encompassing the volumes of a sample of 46 superclusters of galaxies up to z = 0.15. A virial approximation was applied to correct the positions of the galaxies in the redshift space for the “finger of God” projection effect. Our methodology implements different classical pattern recognition and machine-learning techniques (Voronoi tessellation, hierarchical clustering, graph-network theory, and minimum spanning trees, among others), pipelined in the Galaxy System-Finding algorithm and the Galaxy Filament-Finding algorithm. Results. In total, we detected 2705 galaxy systems (clusters and groups, of which 159 are new) and 144 galaxy filaments in the 46 superclusters of galaxies. The filaments we detected have a density contrast of above 3, with a mean value of around 10, a radius of about 2.5 h70−1 Mpc, and lengths of between 9 and 130 h70−1 Mpc. Correlations between the galaxy properties (mass, morphology, and activity) and the environment in which they reside (systems, filaments, and the dispersed component) suggest that galaxies closer to the skeleton of the filaments are more massive by up to 25% compared to those in the dispersed component; 70% of the galaxies in the filament region present early-type morphologies and the fractions of active galaxies (both AGNs and star-forming galaxies) seem to decrease as galaxies approach the filament. Conclusions. Our results support the idea that galaxies in filaments are subject to environmental effects leading them to be more massive (probably due to larger rates of both merging and gas accretion), less active both in star formation and nuclear activity, and prone to the density–morphology relation. These results suggest that preprocessing in large-scale filaments could have significant effects on galaxy evolution.

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (S235) ◽  
pp. 230-230
Author(s):  
Ivelina Momcheva ◽  
Kurtis Williams ◽  
Ann Zabludoff ◽  
Charles Keeton

AbstractPoor groups are common and interactive environments for galaxies, and thus are important laboratories for studying galaxy evolution. Unfortunately, little is known about groups at z ≥ 0.1, because of the difficulty in identifying them in the first place. Here we present results from our ongoing survey of the environments of strong gravitational lenses, in which we have so far discovered six distant (z ≥ 0.5) groups of galaxies. As in the local Universe, the highest velocity dispersion groups contain a brightest member spatially coincident with the group centroid, whereas lower-dispersion groups tend to have an offset brightest group galaxy. This suggests that higher-dispersion groups are more dynamically relaxed than lower-dispersion groups and that at least some evolved groups exist by z ~ 0.5. We also compare the galaxy and hot gas kinematics with those of similarly distant clusters and of nearby groups.


2020 ◽  
Vol 492 (3) ◽  
pp. 4268-4282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Soussana ◽  
Nora Elisa Chisari ◽  
Sandrine Codis ◽  
Ricarda S Beckmann ◽  
Yohan Dubois ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The intrinsic correlations of galaxy shapes and orientations across the large-scale structure of the Universe are a known contaminant to weak gravitational lensing. They are known to be dependent on galaxy properties, such as their mass and morphologies. The complex interplay between alignments and the physical processes that drive galaxy evolution remains vastly unexplored. We assess the sensitivity of intrinsic alignments (shapes and angular momenta) to active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback by comparing galaxy alignment in twin runs of the cosmological hydrodynamical Horizon simulation, which do and do not include AGN feedback, respectively. We measure intrinsic alignments in three dimensions and in projection at $z$ = 0 and $z$ = 1. We find that the projected alignment signal of all galaxies with resolved shapes with respect to the density field in the simulation is robust to AGN feedback, thus giving similar predictions for contamination to weak lensing. The relative alignment of galaxy shapes around galaxy positions is however significantly impacted, especially when considering high-mass ellipsoids. Using a sample of galaxy ‘twins’ across simulations, we determine that AGN changes both the galaxy selection and their actual alignments. Finally, we measure the alignments of angular momenta of galaxies with their nearest filament. Overall, these are more significant in the presence of AGN as a result of the higher abundance of massive pressure-supported galaxies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 495 (3) ◽  
pp. 3233-3251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aseem Paranjape ◽  
Shadab Alam

ABSTRACT We study the Voronoi volume function (VVF) – the distribution of cell volumes (or inverse local number density) in the Voronoi tessellation of any set of cosmological tracers (galaxies/haloes). We show that the shape of the VVF of biased tracers responds sensitively to physical properties such as halo mass, large-scale environment, substructure, and redshift-space effects, making this a hitherto unexplored probe of both primordial cosmology and galaxy evolution. Using convenient summary statistics – the width, median, and a low percentile of the VVF as functions of average tracer number density – we explore these effects for tracer populations in a suite of N-body simulations of a range of dark matter models. Our summary statistics sensitively probe primordial features such as small-scale oscillations in the initial matter power spectrum (as arise in models involving collisional effects in the dark sector), while being largely insensitive to a truncation of initial power (as in warm dark matter models). For vanilla cold dark matter (CDM) cosmologies, the summary statistics display strong evolution and redshift-space effects, and are also sensitive to cosmological parameter values for realistic tracer samples. Comparing the VVF of galaxies in the Galaxies & Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey with that of abundance-matched CDM (sub)haloes tentatively reveals environmental effects in GAMA beyond halo mass (modulo unmodelled satellite properties). Our exploratory analysis thus paves the way for using the VVF as a new probe of galaxy evolution physics as well as the nature of dark matter and dark energy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 493 (3) ◽  
pp. 3429-3441
Author(s):  
Paulo A A Lopes ◽  
André L B Ribeiro

ABSTRACT We introduce a new method to determine galaxy cluster membership based solely on photometric properties. We adopt a machine learning approach to recover a cluster membership probability from galaxy photometric parameters and finally derive a membership classification. After testing several machine learning techniques (such as stochastic gradient boosting, model averaged neural network and k-nearest neighbours), we found the support vector machine algorithm to perform better when applied to our data. Our training and validation data are from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey main sample. Hence, to be complete to $M_r^* + 3$, we limit our work to 30 clusters with $z$phot-cl ≤ 0.045. Masses (M200) are larger than $\sim 0.6\times 10^{14} \, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$ (most above $3\times 10^{14} \, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$). Our results are derived taking in account all galaxies in the line of sight of each cluster, with no photometric redshift cuts or background corrections. Our method is non-parametric, making no assumptions on the number density or luminosity profiles of galaxies in clusters. Our approach delivers extremely accurate results (completeness, C $\sim 92{\rm{ per\ cent}}$ and purity, P $\sim 87{\rm{ per\ cent}}$) within R200, so that we named our code reliable photometric membership. We discuss possible dependencies on magnitude, colour, and cluster mass. Finally, we present some applications of our method, stressing its impact to galaxy evolution and cosmological studies based on future large-scale surveys, such as eROSITA, EUCLID, and LSST.


2018 ◽  
Vol 609 ◽  
pp. A48 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. L. Aguerri ◽  
A. Longobardi ◽  
S. Zarattini ◽  
A. Kundert ◽  
E. D’Onghia ◽  
...  

Context. It is thought that fossil systems are relics of structure formation in the primitive Universe. They are galaxy aggregations that have assembled their mass at high redshift with few or no subsequent accretion. Observationally these systems are selected by large magnitude gaps between their 1st and 2nd ranked galaxies (Δm12). Nevertheless, there is still debate over whether or not this observational criterium selects dynamically evolved ancient systems. Aims. We have studied the properties of the nearby fossil group RX J075243.6+455653 in order to understand the mass assembly of this system. Methods. Deep spectroscopic observations allow us to construct the galaxy luminosity function (LF) of RX J075243.6+455653 down to Mr*+6. The analysis of the faint-end of the LF in groups and clusters provides valuable information about the mass assembly of the system. In addition, we have analyzed the nearby large-scale structure around this group. Results. We identified 26 group members within r200 ~ 0.96 Mpc. These galaxies are located at Vc = 15551 ± 65 km s-1 and have a velocity dispersion of σc = 333 ± 46 km s-1. The X-ray luminosity of the group is LX = 2.2 × 1043 h70-2 erg s-1, resulting in a mass of M = 4.2 × 1013 h70-1 within 0.5r200. The group has Δm12 = 2.1 within 0.5r200, confirming the fossil nature of this system. RX J075243.6+455653 has a central brightest group galaxy (BGG) with Mr = −22.67, one of the faintest BGGs observed in fossil systems. The LF of the group shows a flat faint-end slope (α = −1.08 ± 0.33). This low density of dwarf galaxies is confirmed by the low value of the dwarf-to-giant ratio (DGR = 0.99 ± 0.49) for this system. Both the lack of dwarf galaxies and the low luminosity of the BGG suggests that RX J075243.6+455653 still has to accrete mass from its nearby environment. This mass accretion will be achieved because it is the dominant structure of a rich environment formed by several groups of galaxies (15) within ~ 7 Mpc from the group center and with ± 1000 km s-1. Conclusions. RX J075243.6+455653 is a group of galaxies that has not yet completed the process of its mass assembly. This new mass accretion will change the fossil state of the group. This group is an example of a galaxy aggregation selected by a large magnitude gap but still in the process of the accretion of its mass.


2020 ◽  
Vol 638 ◽  
pp. A75 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Bonjean ◽  
N. Aghanim ◽  
M. Douspis ◽  
N. Malavasi ◽  
H. Tanimura

The role played by large-scale structures in galaxy evolution is not very well understood yet. In this study, we investigated properties of galaxies in the range 0.1 <  z <  0.3 from a value-added version of the WISExSCOS catalogue around cosmic filaments detected with DisPerSE. We fitted a profile of galaxy over-density around cosmic filaments and found a typical radius of rm = 7.5 ± 0.2 Mpc. We measured an excess of passive galaxies near to the spine of the filament that was higher than the excess of transitioning and active galaxies. We also detected star formation rates (SFR) and stellar mass (M⋆) gradients pointing towards the spine of the filament. We investigated this result and found an M⋆ gradient for each type of galaxy, that is active, transitioning, and passive; we found a positive SFR gradient for passive galaxies. We also linked the galaxy properties and gas content in the cosmic web. To do so, we investigated the quiescent fraction fQ profile of galaxies around the cosmic filaments. Based on recent studies about the effect of the gas and the cosmic web on galaxy properties, we modelled fQ with a β model of gas pressure. The slope obtained in this work, β = 0.54 ± 0.18, is compatible with the scenario of projected isothermal gas in hydrostatic equilibrium (β = 2/3) and with the profiles of gas fitted in Sunyaev-Zel’dovich data from the Planck satellite.


2020 ◽  
Vol 635 ◽  
pp. A195 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Gouin ◽  
N. Aghanim ◽  
V. Bonjean ◽  
M. Douspis

Galaxy clusters are connected at their peripheries to the large-scale structures by cosmic filaments that funnel accreting material. These filamentary structures are studied to investigate both environment-driven galaxy evolution and structure formation and evolution. In the present work, we probe in a statistical manner the azimuthal distribution of galaxies around clusters as a function of the cluster-centric distance, cluster richness, and star-forming or passive galaxy activity. We performed a harmonic decomposition in large photometric galaxy catalogue around 6400 SDSS clusters with masses M >  1014 solar masses in the redshift range of 0.1 <  z <  0.3. The same analysis was performed on the mock galaxy catalogue from the light cone of a Magneticum hydrodynamical simulation. We used the multipole analysis to quantify asymmetries in the 2D galaxy distribution. In the inner cluster regions at R <  2R500, we confirm that the galaxy distribution traces an ellipsoidal shape, which is more pronounced for richest clusters. In the outskirts of the clusters (R = [2 − 8]R500), filamentary patterns are detected in harmonic space with a mean angular scale mmean = 4.2 ± 0.1. Massive clusters seem to have a larger number of connected filaments than lower-mass clusters. We also find that passive galaxies appear to trace the filamentary structures around clusters better. This is the case even if the contribution of star-forming galaxies tends to increase with the cluster-centric distance, suggesting a gradient of galaxy activity in filaments around clusters.


2020 ◽  
Vol 634 ◽  
pp. A13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laila Linke ◽  
Patrick Simon ◽  
Peter Schneider ◽  
Stefan Hilbert

Context. Galaxy-galaxy-galaxy lensing (G3L) is a powerful tool for constraining the three-point correlation between the galaxy and matter distribution and thereby models of galaxy evolution. Aims. We propose three improvements to current measurements of G3L: (i) a weighting of lens galaxies according to their redshift difference, (ii) adaptive binning of the three-point correlation function, and (iii) accounting for the effect of lens magnification by the cosmic large-scale structure. Improvement (i) is designed to improve the precision of the G3L measurement, whereas improvements (ii) and (iii) remove biases of the estimator. We further show how the G3L signal can be converted from angular into physical scales. Methods. The improvements were tested on simple mock data and simulated data based on the Millennium Run with an implemented semi-analytic galaxy model. Results. Our improvements increase the signal-to-noise ratio by 35% on average at angular scales between 0.′1 and 10′ and physical scales between 0.02 and 2 h−1 Mpc. They also remove the bias of the G3L estimator at angular scales below 1′, which was originally up to 40%. The signal due to lens magnification is approximately 10% of the total signal.


2019 ◽  
Vol 491 (4) ◽  
pp. 5524-5554 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Hung ◽  
B C Lemaux ◽  
R R Gal ◽  
A R Tomczak ◽  
L M Lubin ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The Observations of Redshift Evolution in Large-Scale Environments (ORELSE) survey is an ongoing imaging and spectroscopic campaign initially designed to study the effects of environment on galaxy evolution in high-redshift (z ∼ 1) large-scale structures. We use its rich data in combination with a powerful new technique, Voronoi tessellation Monte Carlo (VMC) mapping, to search for serendipitous galaxy overdensities at 0.55 &lt; z &lt; 1.37 within 15 ORELSE fields, a combined spectroscopic footprint of ∼1.4 deg2. Through extensive tests with both observational data and our own mock galaxy catalogues, we optimize the method’s many free parameters to maximize its efficacy for general overdensity searches. Our overdensity search yielded 402 new overdensity candidates with precisely measured redshifts and an unprecedented sensitivity down to low total overdensity masses ($\mathcal {M}_{\mathrm{ tot}}\gtrsim5\times 10^{13}$ M⊙). Using the mock catalogues, we estimated the purity and completeness of our overdensity catalogue as a function of redshift, total mass, and spectroscopic redshift fraction, finding impressive levels of both 0.92/0.83 and 0.60/0.49 for purity/completeness at z = 0.8 and z = 1.2, respectively, for all overdensity masses at spectroscopic fractions of ∼20 per cent. With VMC mapping, we are able to measure precise systemic redshifts, provide an estimate of the total gravitating mass, and maintain high levels of purity and completeness at z ∼ 1 even with only moderate levels of spectroscopy. Other methods (e.g. red-sequence overdensities and hot medium reliant detections) begin to fail at similar redshifts, which attests to VMC mapping’s potential to be a powerful tool for current and future wide-field galaxy evolution surveys at z ∼ 1 and beyond.


2019 ◽  
Vol 627 ◽  
pp. A136 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Iodice ◽  
M. Sarzi ◽  
A. Bittner ◽  
L. Coccato ◽  
L. Costantin ◽  
...  

The 31 brightest galaxies (mB ≤ 15 mag) inside the virial radius of the Fornax cluster were observed from the centres to the outskirts with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer on the Very Large Telescope. These observations provide detailed high-resolution maps of the line-of-sight kinematics, line strengths of the stars, ionised gas reaching 2–3 Re for 21 early-type galaxies, and 1–2 Re for 10 late-type galaxies. The majority of the galaxies are regular rotators, with eight hosting a kinematically distinct core. Only two galaxies are slow rotators. The mean age, total metallicity, and [Mg/Fe] abundance ratio in the bright central region inside 0.5 Re and in the galaxy outskirts are presented. Extended emission-line gas is detected in 13 galaxies, most of them are late-type objects with wide-spread star formation. The measured structural properties are analysed in relation to the galaxies’ position in the projected phase space of the cluster. This shows that the Fornax cluster appears to consist of three main groups of galaxies inside the virial radius: the old core; a clump of galaxies, which is aligned with the local large-scale structure and was accreted soon after the formation of the core; and a group of galaxies that fell in more recently.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document