Galaxy ecology: groups and low-density environments in the SDSS and 2dFGRS

By M. Balogh, V. Eke, C. J. Miller, Ian Lewis, Richard G. Bower, W. Couch, Robert Nichol, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, I. Baldry, C. Baugh and 27 more. 2003

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We analyse the observed correlation between galaxy environment and Halpha emission-line strength, using volume-limited samples and group catalogues of 24 968 galaxies at 0.05 < z < 0.095, drawn from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (M-bJ < -19.5) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (M-r < -20.6). We characterize the environment by: (1) Sigma(5), the surface number density of galaxies determined by the projected distance to the fifth nearest neighbour; and (2) rho(1.1) and rho(5.5), three-dimensional density estimates obtained by convolving the galaxy distribution with Gaussian kernels of dispersion 1.1 and 5.5 Mpc, respectively. We find that star-forming and quiescent galaxies form two distinct populations, as characterized by their H equivalent width, W-0(Halpha). The relative numbers of star-forming and quiescent galaxies vary strongly and continuously with local density. However, the distribution of W-0(Halpha) amongst the star-forming population is independent of environment. The fraction of star-forming galaxies shows strong sensitivity to the density on large scales, rho(5.5), which is likely independent of the trend with local density, rho(1.1). We use two differently selected group catalogues to demonstrate that the correlation with galaxy density is approximately independent of group velocity dispersion, for sigma = 200-1000 km s(-1). Even in the lowest-density environments, no more than similar to70 per cent of galaxies show significant Halpha emission. Based on these results, we conclude that the present-day correlation between star formation rate and environment is a result of short-time-scale mechanisms that take place preferentially at high redshift, such as starbursts induced by galaxy-galaxy interactions.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/36361a0c1d007c9c8370d8eff6c04faa7e3d2c24

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Citations in the corpus

The DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey: the role of galaxy environment in the cosmic star formation history (2007, background): “Many galaxy properties — including their star–formation rates (SFR) — have been found to depend on galaxy environment in the local Universe (e.g., Davis & Geller 1976; Balogh et al. 2004a; Kauffmann et al. 2004; Christlein & Zabludoff 2005).”
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Why does the environmental influence on group and cluster galaxies extend beyond the virial radius (2012, background): “…is primarily influenced by itsrecent star formation activity, this ‘colour–density relation’ indicates a reduced level of star formation in group and cluster galaxies com- ∗ ybahe@ast.cam.ac.uk pared to those of similar stellar mass in the field (e.g., Balogh et al. 2004; Poggianti et al. 2006).”
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On the influence of ram-pressure stripping on the star formation of simulated spiral galaxies (2008, background): “It has been proven (e.g. Balogh et al. 2004; Haines et al. 2007) that the equivalent width of the Hα emission line in star-forming galaxies does not depend strongly on the local density, while the fraction of star-forming objects does.”
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