THE GEMINI CLUSTER ASTROPHYSICS SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY (GCLASS): THE ROLE OF ENVIRONMENT AND SELF-REGULATION IN GALAXY EVOLUTION AT z ∼ 1

By A. Muzzin, G. Wilson, H. Yee, D. Gilbank, H. Hoekstra, R. Demarco, M. Balogh, P. V. van Dokkum, M. Franx, E. Ellingson and 8 more. 2011

226 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We evaluate the effects of environment and stellar mass on galaxy properties at 0.85 9.3 the well-known correlations between environment and properties such as star-forming fraction (fSF), star formation rate (SFR), specific SFR (SSFR), Dn(4000), and color are already in place at z ∼ 1. We separate the effects of environment and stellar mass on galaxies by comparing the properties of star-forming and quiescent galaxies at fixed environment and fixed stellar mass. The SSFR of star-forming galaxies at fixed environment is correlated with stellar mass; however, at fixed stellar mass it is independent of environment. The same trend exists for the Dn(4000) measures of both the star-forming and quiescent galaxies and shows that their properties are determined primarily by their stellar mass, not by their environment. Instead, it appears that environment's primary role is to control the fraction of star-forming galaxies. Using the spectra we identify candidate poststarburst galaxies and find that those with 9.3 < log M*/M☉ < 10.7 are 3.1 ± 1.1 times more common in high-density regions compared to low-density regions. The clear association of poststarbursts with high-density regions as well as the lack of a correlation between the SSFRs and Dn(4000)s of star-forming galaxies with their environment strongly suggests that at z ∼ 1 the environmental-quenching timescale must be rapid. Lastly, we construct a simple quenching model which demonstrates that the lack of a correlation between the Dn(4000) of quiescent galaxies and their environment results naturally if self quenching dominates over environmental quenching at z > 1, or if the evolution of the self-quenching rate mirrors the evolution of the environmental-quenching rate at z > 1, regardless of which dominates.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0c21963d4c249ff6fe66604febe7f9eb2fb1aab2

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. C. Conroy
2. L. Hernquist
3. P. Hopkins
4. P. V. van Dokkum
5. R. Dav'e
6. Risa Wechsler
7. F. V. D. Bosch
8. T. Treu

In Instrumentation

1. C. Conroy
2. F. V. D. Bosch
3. P. V. van Dokkum
4. L. Hernquist
5. Risa Wechsler
6. M. Cappellari
7. T. Treu
8. M. Franx

Citations in the corpus

• The realm of the galaxy protoclusters (2016, background): “Massive clusters at z ∼ 1 generally have strong red sequences (e.g., Postman et al., 2005; Blakeslee et al., 2006; van der Wel et al., 2007; Patel et al., 2009; Mei et al., 2009; Muzzin et al., 2012; Foltz et al., 2015).”
• On the evolution and environmental dependence of the star formation rate versus stellar mass relation since z ∼ 2 (2013, background): “M∗ relation out toz = 1 (Vulcani et al. 2010; Li et al. 2011; McGee et al. 2011; Tyler et al. 2011; Muzzin et al. 2012), or out toz = 2 (Tanaka et al. 2010; Tanaka et al. 2011; Grützbauch et al. 2011; Koyama et al. 2013), but a full consensus on the environmental impacts on the SFR versusM∗…”
• The green valley is a red herring: Galaxy Zoo reveals two evolutionary pathways towards quenching of star formation in early-and late-type galaxies (2014, background): “Other recent observational studies have argued that environment or satellite quenching should act fast, at least once it begins (e.g. Muzzin et al. 2012; Wetzel et al. 2013).”
• THE ERA OF STAR FORMATION IN GALAXY CLUSTERS (2013, background): “Indeed, Muzzin et al. (2012) find a very similar star formation-radius trend in the GCLASS sample at z ∼ 1.”
• Galaxy evolution in groups and clusters: satellite star formation histories and quenching time-scales in a hierarchical Universe (2012, background): “Similar satellite trends persists out to at least z ∼ 1 (e.g., Cucciati et al. 2006; Cooper et al. 2007; Gerke et al. 2007; Tran et al. 2009; Peng et al. 2010; McGee et al. 2011; George et al. 2011; Muzzin et al. 2012).”
• THE GRISM LENS-AMPLIFIED SURVEY FROM SPACE (GLASS). I. SURVEY OVERVIEW AND FIRST DATA RELEASE (2015, background): “…formation in cluster galaxies (Butcher & Oemler 1984; Dressler et al. 1999, 2013; Poggianti et al. 1999), and contrasting them to those operating in the field (Cooper et al. 2008; Vulcani et al. 2010; Muzzin et al. 2012; Oemler et al. 2013) is key to understanding the causes of the general decline.”
• Evidence for Significant Growth in the Stellar Mass of Brightest Cluster Galaxies over the Past 10 Billion Years (2012, methodology): “Ten of the 12 clusters were observed in the GCLASS3 survey, which used the Gemini Multi-object Spectrographs on Gemini North and Gemini South Telescopes to obtain between 20 and 80 spectroscopically confirmed members per cluster (Muzzin et al. 2012).”