Galaxy Groups in the SDSS DR4. I. The Catalog and Basic Properties

By Xiaohu Yang, H. Mo, F. V. D. Bosch, A. Pasquali, Cheng Li, M. Barden. 2007

759 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We use a modified version of the halo-based group finder developed by Yang et al. to select galaxy groups from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS DR4). In the first step, a combination of two methods is used to identify the centers of potential groups and to estimate their characteristic luminosity. Using an iterative approach, the adaptive group finder then uses the average mass-to-light ratios of groups, obtained from the previous iteration, to assign a tentative mass to each group. This mass is then used to estimate the size and velocity dispersion of the underlying halo that hosts the group, which in turn is used to determine group membership in redshift space. Finally, each individual group is assigned two different halo masses: one based on its characteristic luminosity and the other based on its characteristic stellar mass. Applying the group finder to the SDSS DR4, we obtain 301,237 groups in a broad dynamic range, including systems of isolated galaxies. We use detailed mock galaxy catalogs constructed for the SDSS DR4 to test the performance of our group finder in terms of completeness of true members, contamination by interlopers, and accuracy of the assigned masses. This paper is the first in a series and focuses on the selection procedure, tests of the reliability of the group finder, and the basic properties of the group catalog (e.g., the mass-to-light ratios, the halo mass-to-stellar mass ratios). The group catalogs including the membership of the groups are available on request.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8f97df294c4f78f507801b0fb9d6b2d136ddfbb0

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Citations in the corpus

MASS AND ENVIRONMENT AS DRIVERS OF GALAXY EVOLUTION. II. THE QUENCHING OF SATELLITE GALAXIES AS THE ORIGIN OF ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS (2011, methodology): “Some second-order effects may introduce a redshift-dependence on the performance of the group-finder, e.g. due to the changing number density of galaxies, or to issues associated with the spatial scale of "fibre-collisions" (see the discussion in Yang et al. 2007).”
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, methodology): “We use the Yang et al. (2007) group catalogue which yields a statistical estimate of the halo mass for each galaxy group, and whether any galaxy is the most massive/luminous in the group (central versus satellite).”
The kinematic connection between galaxies and dark matter haloes (2010, methodology): “…2008) and Schulz et al. (2010); Satellite kinematics (SK) from Conroy et al. (2007); More et al. (2010); and Klypin, Prada & Montero-Dorta (2010, in prep); halo abundance matching (AM) from Moster et al. (2010), Guo et al. (2010) and Behroozi et al. (2010); Group catalogs from Yang et al. (2007).”
The correlation of star formation quenching with internal galaxy properties and environment (2008, methodology): “An alternate approach is to use a galaxy group catalogue, in which galaxies in an observational catalogue are not only grouped together into putatively gravitationally bound structures, but also the total mass of their associated dark matter halo (DMH) is estimated (Yang et al. 2007, hereafter Y07).”
Dependence of galaxy quenching on halo mass and distance from its centre (2012, methodology): “Then we self-calibrated the groups to account for missing members following Yang et al. (2007).”
The GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey - VIII. Final data release. The effect of group environment on the gas content of massive galaxies (2013, methodology): “Yang et al. (2007) compiled a catalog of galaxy groups based on SDSS DR4, using what they refer to as a halobased group finder.”
Satellite kinematics – III. Halo masses of central galaxies in SDSS (2010, neutral): “Yang et al. (2007) studied galaxy groups in the SDSS, which they assigned halo masses based upon either the total stellar mass or the total luminosity content of each group.”
A CATALOG OF DETAILED VISUAL MORPHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATIONS FOR 14,034 GALAXIES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY (2010, methodology): “Briefly, Yang et al. (2007) use an iterative halo-based group finder on the NYU-VAGC SDSS catalog identifying tentative group members using a modified friends-of-friends algorithm.”
Cosmological constraints from a combination of galaxy clustering and lensing – I. Theoretical framework (2012, methodology): “…the CLF, Φ(L|M) = Φc(L|M) + Φs(L|M) , (72) We use the CLF model presented in Cacciato et al. (2009), which is motivated by the CLFs obtained by Yang, Mo & van den Bosch (2008) from a large galaxy group catalog (Yang et al. 2007) extracted from the SDSS Data Release 4 (Adelman-McCarthy et al. 2006).”
Cosmological constraints from the clustering of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7 luminous red galaxies (vol 404, pg 60, 2010) (2009, methodology): “Using a galaxy group and cluster catalogue from the SDSS (Yang et al. 2007), Skibba et al. (2010) find that the fraction of clusters in which the central galaxy is fainter than the brightest satellite is ≈30 per cent in the mass range M ∼ 1013–1014 M and ≈40 per cent for M ∼ 1014–1015 M .”
Cosmological Constraints from a Combination of Galaxy Clustering and Lensing -- III. Application to SDSS Data (2012, methodology): “(15) of Yang et al. (2007).”
A GMBCG GALAXY CLUSTER CATALOG OF 55,424 RICH CLUSTERS FROM SDSS DR7 (2010, methodology): “This color information is the primary tool to determine the 1When spectroscopic redshifts are available, other algorithms have been developed, for example, Berlind et al. (2006); Yang et al. (2007); Miller et al. (2005).”
Galaxy Zoo: Disentangling the Environmental Dependence of Morphology and Colour ⋆ (2008, background): “, with the galaxy group catalogue of Yang et al. (2007).”
xGASS: total cold gas scaling relations and molecular-to-atomic gas ratios of galaxies in the local Universe (2018, background): “…(4 per cent of our sample, empty circles) are detected in CO only; of these, 9 are satellites in groups with 19 or more members according to the Yang et al. (2007) group catalogue12 and are all located in the bottom half of the SFMS or below it, suggesting that environmental effects in these…”
Galaxy evolution in groups and clusters: satellite star formation histories and quenching time-scales in a hierarchical Universe (2012, methodology): “Motivated by the paradigm that all galaxies reside in host dark matter halos, we identify groups of galaxies that occupy the same host halo and their halo properties through a modified implementation of the group-finding algorithm of Yang et al. (2005, 2007).”
CALIFA : a diameter-selected sample for an integral field spectroscopy galaxy survey (2014, methodology): “We matched the CALIFA MS with the group catalogue extracted from the SDSS DR7 by Wang et al. (2011) and Yang et al. (2007).”
Galaxy Groups in the SDSS DR4. II. Halo Occupation Statistics (2007, methodology): “Recently, we have constructed a large galaxy group catalog based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 (SDSS DR4), using an adaptive halo-based group finder (Yang et al. 2007, hereafter Y07).”
Physical properties and environments of nearby galaxies (2009, background): “2−0.3h for massive clusters (Lin et al. 2004; Hansen et al. 2009) and a steeper relationship at lower masses (Yang et al. 2007; Brough et al. 2008).”
GALAXY CLUSTERING IN THE COMPLETED SDSS REDSHIFT SURVEY: THE DEPENDENCE ON COLOR AND LUMINOSITY (2010, background): “…cited above and van den Bosch, Mo, & Yang 2003b; Weinmann et al. 2006; van den Bosch et al. 2007; Yang, Mo, & van den Bosch 2008; More et al. 2009), though they have largely focused on analysis of group catalogs (Yang et al. 2005a, 2007) rather than detailed fitting of the correlation function.”
GALAXY CLUSTERS IDENTIFIED FROM THE SDSS DR6 AND THEIR PROPERTIES (2009, methodology): “The richness of this cluster is 95 by the maxBCG method (defined to be the number of member galaxies brighter than 0.4L∗ within 1 h−1 Mpc), and 164 by the method of Yang et al. (2007) (defined to be the number of member galaxies ofMr ≤ −19.5).”