scholarly journals The weak imprint of environment on the stellar populations of galaxies

2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (4) ◽  
pp. 4469-4490 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Trussler ◽  
Roberto Maiolino ◽  
Claudia Maraston ◽  
Yingjie Peng ◽  
Daniel Thomas ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We investigate the environmental dependence of the stellar populations of galaxies in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7). Echoing earlier works, we find that satellites are both more metal-rich (<0.1 dex) and older (<2 Gyr) than centrals of the same stellar mass. However, after separating star-forming, green valley, and passive galaxies, we find that the true environmental dependence of both stellar metallicity (<0.03 dex) and age (<0.5 Gyr) is in fact much weaker. We show that the strong environmental effects found when galaxies are not differentiated result from a combination of selection effects brought about by the environmental dependence of the quenched fraction of galaxies, and thus we strongly advocate for the separation of star-forming, green valley, and passive galaxies when the environmental dependence of galaxy properties are investigated. We also study further environmental trends separately for both central and satellite galaxies. We find that star-forming galaxies show no environmental effects, neither for centrals nor for satellites. In contrast, the stellar metallicities of passive and green valley satellites increase weakly (<0.05 and <0.08 dex, respectively) with increasing halo mass, increasing local overdensity and decreasing projected distance from their central; this effect is interpreted in terms of moderate environmental starvation (‘strangulation’) contributing to the quenching of satellite galaxies. Finally, we find a unique feature in the stellar mass–stellar metallicity relation for passive centrals, where galaxies in more massive haloes have larger stellar mass (∼0.1 dex) at constant stellar metallicity; this effect is interpreted in terms of dry merging of passive central galaxies and/or progenitor bias.

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (S262) ◽  
pp. 446-447
Author(s):  
Pieter Westera ◽  
François Cuisinier ◽  
Carlos R. Rabaça

AbstractWe examine the star forming phenomenon as it can be encountered in galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which possibly contains the largest homogeneous sample of star forming galaxy spectra to date.After eliminating all spectra with an insufficient signal-to-noise ratio, without strong emission lines, and without the [OII] λ3727 Å line, which is necessary for the determination of the gas metallicity (which excludes galaxies with redshift ≲ 0.024–0.025), our sample contains ~6000 spectra of star forming galaxies.Through a detailed stellar population analysis employing evolutionary synthesis methods we determined the stellar composition of these galaxies, that is, the masses, ages and metallicities of their partial stellar populations.We find that most, possibly all, galaxies of our sample contain, apart from the presently bursting, ionising young generation (≤ 107 yrs), old (≥ 109 yrs) and intermediate (between 107 and 109 yrs) populations, whereas the old population dominates the stellar mass (but not the light).We also find that high (stellar) mass galaxies have higher gas metallicities and lower present star formation rates relative to their total (stellar) masses, than low mass galaxies, indicating a higher chemical evolution degree for high mass galaxies.Furthermore, we find that gas enrichment mechanisms in star forming galaxies do not vary with galactic mass, being the same for low- and high-mass galaxies on average. Gas enrichment mechanisms seem to present a greater variety at the high-mass end, though, indicating a more complex assembly history for high-mass galaxies.


2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (H16) ◽  
pp. 324-324
Author(s):  
Karen L. Masters ◽  

AbstractWe use visual classifications of the brightest 250,000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Main Galaxy Sample provided by citizen scientists via the Galaxy Zoo project (www.galaxyzoo.org, Lintott et al. 2008) to identify a sample of local disc galaxies with reliable bar identifications.These data, combined with information on the atomic gas content from the ALFALFA survey (Haynes et al. 2011) show that disc galaxies with higher gas content have lower bar fractions.We use a gas deficiency parameter to show that disc galaxies with more/less gas than expected for their stellar mass are less/more likely to host bars. Furthermore, we see that at a fixed gas content there is no residual correlation between bar fraction and stellar mass. We argue that this suggests previously observed correlations between galaxy colour/stellar mass and (strong) bar fraction (e.g. from the sample in Masters et al. 2011, and also see Nair & Abraham 2010) could be driven by the interaction between bars and the gas content of the disc, since more massive, optically redder disc galaxies are observed to have lower gas contents.Furthermore we see evidence that at a fixed gas content the global colours of barred galaxies are redder than those of unbarred galaxies. We suggest that this could be due to the exchange of angular momentum beyond co-rotation which might stop a replenishment of gas from external sources, and act as a source of feedback to temporarily halt or reduce the star formation in the outer parts of barred discs.These results (published as Masters et al. 2012) combined with those of Skibba et al. (2012), who use the same sample to show a clear (but subtle and complicated) environmental dependence of the bar fraction in disc galaxies, suggest that bars are intimately linked to the evolution of disc galaxies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S356) ◽  
pp. 358-360
Author(s):  
Dejene Zewdie ◽  
Mirjana Pović ◽  
Manuel Aravena ◽  
Roberto J. Assef ◽  
Asrate Gaulle

AbstractIn this work, we study the properties of galaxies that are showing the inside-out assembly (which we call inside-out assembled galaxies; IOAGs), with the main aim to understand better their properties and morphological transformation. We analysed a sample of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 8 (DR8), with stellar masses in the range log M* = 10.73 – 11.03 M⊙ at at z < 0.1, and analyze their location in the stellar mass-SFR and the color-stellar mass diagram. We found that IOAGs have different spectroscopic properties, most of them being classified either as AGN or composite. We found that the majority of our sources are located below the main sequence of star formation in the SFR-stellar mass diagram, and in the green valley or red sequence in the color-stellar mass diagram. We argue that IOAGs seem to correspond to the transition area where the galaxies are moving from star-forming to quiescent, and from the blue cloud to the red sequence and/or to recently quenched galaxies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 163 (1) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Yu-Zhong Wu

Abstract I assemble 4684 star-forming early-type galaxies (ETGs) and 2011 composite ETGs (located in the composite region on the BPT diagram) from the catalog of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 MPA-JHU emission-line measurements. I compare the properties of both ETG samples and investigate their compositions, stellar masses, specific star formation rates (sSFRs), and excitation mechanisms. Compared with star-forming ETGs, composite ETGs have higher stellar mass and lower sSFR. In the stellar mass and u − r color diagram, more than 60% of star-forming ETGs and composite ETGs are located in the green valley, showing that the two ETG samples may have experienced star formation and that ∼17% of star-forming ETGs lie in the blue cloud, while ∼30% of composite ETGs lie in the red sequence. In the [N II]/Hα versus EWHα (the Hα equivalent width) diagram, all star-forming ETGs and most of the composite ETGs are located in the star-forming galaxy region, and composite ETGs have lower EWHα than their counterparts. We show the relations between 12+log(O/H) and log(N/O) for both ETG samples, and suggest that nitrogen production of some star-forming ETGs can be explained by the evolution scheme of Coziol et al., while the prodution of composite ETGs may be a consequence of the inflowing of metal-poor gas and these more evolved massive galaxies.


Open Physics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin-Fa Deng ◽  
Jun Song ◽  
Yi-Qing Chen ◽  
Peng Jiang ◽  
Ying-Ping Ding

AbstractUsing two volume-limited Main galaxy samples of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 10 (SDSS DR10), we examine the environmental dependence of galaxy age at fixed parameters or for different galaxy families. Statistical results show that the environmental dependence of galaxy age is stronger for late type galaxies, but can be still observed for the early types: the age of galaxies in the densest regime is preferentially older than that in the lowest density regime with the same morphological type. We also find that the environmental dependence of galaxy age for red galaxies and Low Stellar Mass (LSM) galaxies is stronger, while the one for blue galaxies and High Stellar Mass ( HSM ) galaxies is very weak.


2020 ◽  
Vol 494 (4) ◽  
pp. 4969-4985 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R Patton ◽  
Kieran D Wilson ◽  
Colin J Metrow ◽  
Sara L Ellison ◽  
Paul Torrey ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We use the IllustrisTNG cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to investigate how the specific star formation rates (sSFRs) of massive galaxies (M* &gt; 1010 M⊙) depend on the distance to their closest companions. We estimate sSFR enhancements by comparing with control samples that are matched in redshift, stellar mass, local density, and isolation, and we restrict our analysis to pairs with stellar mass ratios of 0.1 to 10. At small separations (∼15 kpc), the mean sSFR is enhanced by a factor of 2.0 ± 0.1 in the flagship (110.7 Mpc)3 simulation (TNG100-1). Statistically significant enhancements extend out to 3D separations of 280 kpc in the (302.6 Mpc)3 simulation (TNG300-1). We find similar trends in the EAGLE and Illustris simulations, although their sSFR enhancements are lower than those in TNG100-1 by about a factor of two. Enhancements in IllustrisTNG galaxies are seen throughout the redshift range explored (0 ≤ $z$ &lt; 1), with the strength of the enhancements decreasing with increasing redshift for galaxies with close companions. In order to more closely compare with observational results, we separately consider 2D projected distances between galaxies in IllustrisTNG. We detect significant sSFR enhancements out to projected separations of 260 kpc in TNG300-1, with projection effects diluting the size of the enhancements by about 20 per cent below 50 kpc. We find similar sSFR enhancements in TNG100-1 and Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies, with enhancements extending out to projected separations of about 150 kpc for star-forming galaxies at $z$ &lt; 0.2. Finally, by summing over all separations, we estimate that the presence of closest companions boosts the average sSFR of massive galaxies in TNG100-1 by 14.5 per cent.


2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (S267) ◽  
pp. 144-144
Author(s):  
N. Vale Asari ◽  
G. Stasińska ◽  
R. Cid Fernandes ◽  
J. M. Gomes ◽  
M. Schlickmann ◽  
...  

Various studies have shown that there is an empirical relation between the nebular metallicity of a galaxy and its stellar mass. Until now, most studies of the mass-metallicity relation (M–Z) have focused on the abundances of the interstellar medium as measured by emission-line features. This technique thus excludes galaxies with AGN from the working samples, due to the difficulty to measure the nebular abundances when emission-lines are powered both by stars and AGN. With our synthesis code starlight, we are able to recover the stellar metallicities of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Therefore, although we still cannot measure the nebular metallicity in AGN hosts, we know their present-day stellar metallicities. Moreover, because we measure the metallicity of stellar populations of different ages in a galaxy, we are also able also recover the history of its chemical enrichment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-191
Author(s):  
Xin-Fa Deng

In this work, I construct a LRG (Luminous Red Galaxy) sample with redshifts 0.6 ≤ z ≤ 0.75 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 15 (SDSS DR15), which contains 184172 CMASS LRGs and 27158 eBOSS LRGs, and examine the environmental dependence of galaxy age and stellar mass in this galaxy sample. I divide this LRG sample into subsamples with a redshift binning size of ∆z = 0.01, and analyze the environmental dependence of galaxy age and stellar mass for these subsamples in each redshift bin. Overall, galaxy age and stellar mass in the LRG sample with redshift 0.6 ≤ z ≤ 0.75 are very weakly correlated with the local environment, which shows that minimal environmental dependence of galaxy parameters can continue to larger redshifts.


2014 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin-Fa Deng ◽  
Si-Yu Zou

Using the LOWZ (0.15 ≤ z ≤ 0.43) and CMASS (0.43 ≤ z ≤ 0.7) galaxy samples of the ninth data release from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), we investigate the environmental dependence of stellar mass of BOSS galaxies, and conclude that like the luminous red galaxy sample of the SDSS, the environmental dependence of stellar mass of BOSS galaxies is fairly weak. Results of this work also show that the CMASS sample with the redshift 0.43 ≤ z ≤ 0.7 used by many authors seriously suffers from the radial selection effect.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (S245) ◽  
pp. 391-394
Author(s):  
Louisa A. Nolan ◽  
Ata Kabán ◽  
Markus Harva ◽  
Andrew Benson ◽  
Somak Raychaudhury

AbstractWe use a purely data-driven rectified factor analysis to identify early-type galaxies with young (≲ 4 Gyr) stellar populations in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Spectroscopic Catalogue. We call these galaxies E+F galaxies, analogous to E+A galaxies. These galaxies lie in the ‘Green Valley’, between the blue cloud and the red sequence on the colour-magnitude diagram. As such, these galaxies may represent an important transient stage in the evolution of galaxies from blue and star-forming to red and passive. We investigate the distribution in projected local galaxy surface density of the E+F galaxies, and compare it with the environment of early-type and E+A galaxies. We find that i) the E+A distribution peaks strongly in projected local galaxy surface density, Σ5, at ~ 0.1−0.2 Mpc−2, ii) early-types have a flatter peak at ~ 0.06−0.2 Mpc−2, iii) the E+Fs lie somewhere in between, and iv) the distributions of the models do not agree well with the data, peaking at higher densities, and under-predicting the number of E+As at low (Σ5 < 0.3 Mpc−2) densities. The dearth of E+A and E+F galaxies in dense environments confirms that E+A and E+F galaxies are most likely the products of galaxy-galaxy merging or interactions, rather than star-forming galaxies whose star formation has been quenched by processes unique to dense environments, such as ram-pressure stripping or galaxy harassment. The similarity of the environments in which the E+F population and the E+A galaxy sample are found, together with the spectral evidence, suggests that E+F galaxies are E+A galaxies, which have evolved by a further ~ one to a few Gyr.


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