We evaluate the effects of environment and stellar mass on galaxy properties at 0.85 < z < 1.20 using a 3.6µm-selected spectroscopic sample of 797 cluster and field galaxies drawn from the GCLASS survey. We confirm that for galaxies with LogM * /M ⊙ > 9.3 the well-known correlations between environment and properties such as star-forming fraction (f SF ), SFR, SSFR, D n (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 D n (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 < LogM * /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 D n (4000)s of starforming 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 D n (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.
Using new and published data, we construct a sample of 160 brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) spanning the redshift interval 0.03 < z < 1.63. We use this sample, which covers 70 per cent of the history of the universe, to measure the growth in the stellar mass of BCGs after correcting for the correlation between the stellar mass of the BCG and the mass of the cluster in which it lives. We find that the stellar mass of BCGs increases by a factor of 1.8 ± 0.3 between z = 0.9 and z = 0.2. Compared to earlier works, our result is closer to the predictions of semi‐analytic models. However, BCGs at z = 0.9, relative to BCGs at z = 0.2, are still a factor of 1.5 more massive than the predictions of these models. Star formation rates in BCGs at z ∼ 1 are generally too low to result in significant amounts of mass. Instead, it is likely that most of the mass build up occurs through mainly dry mergers in which perhaps half of the mass is lost to the intra‐cluster medium of the cluster.
We present ALMA CO (2-1) detections in 11 gas-rich cluster galaxies at z∼1.6, constituting the largest sample of molecular gas measurements in z>1.5 clusters to date. The observations span three galaxy clusters, derived from the Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-sequence Cluster Survey. We augment the >5σ detections of the CO (2-1) fluxes with multi-band photometry, yielding stellar masses and infrared-derived star formation rates, to place some of the first constraints on molecular gas properties in z∼1.6 cluster environments. We measure sizable gas reservoirs of 0.5-2×1011 M ☉ in these objects, with high gas fractions ( f gas ) and long depletion timescales (τ), averaging 62% and 1.4 Gyr, respectively. We compare our cluster galaxies to the scaling relations of the coeval field, in the context of how gas fractions and depletion timescales vary with respect to the star-forming main sequence. We find that our cluster galaxies lie systematically off the field scaling relations at z=1.6 toward enhanced gas fractions, at a level of ∼4σ, but have consistent depletion timescales. Exploiting CO detections in lower-redshift clusters from the literature, we investigate the evolution of the gas fraction in cluster galaxies, finding it to mimic the strong rise with redshift in the field. We emphasize the utility of detecting abundant gas-rich galaxies in high-redshift clusters, deeming them as crucial laboratories for future statistical studies.
We present the stellar mass functions (SMFs) of passive and star-forming galaxies with a limiting mass of 10 10.1 M in four spectroscopically confirmed Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-sequence Cluster Survey (SpARCS) galaxy clusters at 1.37 < z < 1.63. The clusters have 113 spectroscopically confirmed members combined, with 8-45 confirmed members each. We construct Ks-bandselected photometric catalogs for each cluster with an average of 11 photometric bands ranging from u to 8 µm. We compare our cluster galaxies to a field sample derived from a similar Ks-band-selected catalog in the UltraVISTA/COSMOS field. The SMFs resemble those of the field, but with signs of environmental quenching. We find that 30 ± 20% of galaxies that would normally be forming stars in the field are quenched in the clusters. The environmental quenching efficiency shows little dependence on projected cluster-centric distance out to ∼4 Mpc, providing tentative evidence of pre-processing and/or galactic conformity in this redshift range. We also compile the available data on environmental quenching efficiencies from the literature, and find that the quenching efficiency in clusters and in groups appears to decline with increasing redshift in a manner consistent with previous results and expectations based on halo mass growth.
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