The Overdensities of Galaxy Environments as a Function of Luminosity and Color

Blanton, Michael R.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Gunn, James E.; Schlegel, David J.; Zehavi, Idit; Bahcall, Neta A.; Brinkmann, J.; Csabai, István; Schneider, Donald P.; Weinberg, David H.; York, Donald G.

doi:10.1086/374238

Cited by 308 publications

(361 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(49 reference statements)

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“…It is therefore surprising that the AGN population has no apparent AGN-density relation, as other properties of galaxies (morphology, luminosity, SFR, etc.) show a strong dependence on local galaxy density (Gó mez et al 2003;Hogg et al 2003). We also find no AGN-density relation for the early-and late-type galaxies.…”

Section: Physical Interpretationcontrasting

confidence: 57%

The Environment of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Miller

Nichol

Gómez

et al. 2003

ApJ

258

304

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We present the observed fraction of galaxies with an active galactic nucleus (AGN) as a function of environment in the early data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Using 4921 galaxies in the redshift range 0:05 z 0:095 and brighter than M r Ã ð Þ ¼ À20:0 (or M Ã þ 1:45), we find at least $20% of these galaxies possess an unambiguous detection of an AGN, but this fraction could be as high as '40% after we model the ambiguous emission-line galaxies in our sample. We have studied the environmental dependence of galaxies, using the local galaxy density as determined from the distance to the 10th nearest neighbor. As expected, we observe that the fraction of star-forming galaxies decreases with density, while the fraction of passive galaxies (no emission lines) increases with density. In contrast, the fraction of galaxies with an AGN remains constant from the cores of galaxy clusters to the rarefied field population. We conclude that the presence of an AGN is independent of the disk component of a galaxy. We have extensively tested our results, and they are robust against measurement error, definition of an AGN, aperture bias, stellar absorption, survey geometry, and signal-to-noise ratio. Our observations are consistent with the hypothesis that a supermassive black hole resides in the bulge of all massive galaxies, and '40% of these black holes are seen as AGNs in our sample. A high fraction of local galaxies with an AGN suggests either that the mean lifetime of these AGNs is longer than previously thought (i.e., !10 8 yr) or that the AGNs burst more often than expected: $40 times over the redshift range of our sample.

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Section: Physical Interpretationcontrasting

confidence: 57%

The Environment of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Miller

Nichol

Gómez

et al. 2003

ApJ

258

304

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“…From Figure 3 we see that the type histogram for the galaxies is almost bimodal (Strateva et al 2001;Hogg et al 2003), with the distribution being well fitted by two Gaussians. For simplicity, we denote these subclasses as '' red '' and '' blue.''…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Angular Clustering with Photometric Redshifts in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Bimodality in the Clustering Properties of Galaxies

Budavàri

Connolly

Szalay

et al. 2003

ApJ

Self Cite

115

100

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Understanding the clustering of galaxies has long been a goal of modern observational cosmology. Redshift surveys have been used to measure the correlation length as a function of luminosity and color. However, when subdividing the catalogs into multiple subsets, the errors increase rapidly. Angular clustering in magnitude-limited photometric surveys has the advantage of much larger catalogs but suffers from a dilution of the clustering signal because of the broad radial distribution of the sample. Also, up to now it has not been possible to select uniform subsamples based on physical parameters, such as luminosity and rest-frame color. Utilizing our photometric redshift technique, a volume-limited sample (0:1 < z < 0:3) containing more than 2 million galaxies is constructed from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxy catalog. In the largest such analysis to date, we study the angular clustering as a function of luminosity and spectral type. Using Limber's equation, we calculate the clustering length for the full data set as r 0 ¼ 5:77 AE 0:10 h À1 Mpc. We find that r 0 increases with luminosity by a factor of 1.6 over the sampled luminosity range, in agreement with previous redshift surveys. We also find that both the clustering length and the slope of the correlation function depend on the galaxy type. In particular, by splitting the galaxies in four groups by their rest-frame type, we find a bimodal behavior in their clustering properties. Galaxies with spectral types similar to elliptical galaxies have a correlation length of 6:59 AE 0:17 h À1 Mpc and a slope of the angular correlation function of 0:96 AE 0:05, while blue galaxies have a clustering length of 4:51 AE 0:19 h À1 Mpc and a slope of 0:68 AE 0:09. The two intermediate color groups behave like their more extreme '' siblings '' rather than showing a gradual transition in slope. We discuss these correlations in the context of current cosmological models for structure formation.

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“…Several studies have emphasised the role played by the environment for the colour-bimodality and star-formation quenching in the local Universe (Hogg et al 2003;Kauffmann et al 2004;Baldry et al 2006;Haines et al 2007). Mechanisms such as ram-pressure stripping, in which the gas is expelled from the galaxy (Gunn & Gott 1972), or strangulation, in which the cold gas supply is heated and then halted (Larson et al 1980), can be invoked as environmental quenching mechanisms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The VIPERS Multi-Lambda Survey

Moutard

Arnouts

Ilbert

et al. 2016

A&A

171

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We investigate the evolution of the galaxy stellar mass function and stellar mass density from redshift z = 0.2 to z = 1.5 of a K s < 22-selected sample with highly reliable photometric redshifts and over an unprecedentedly large area. Our study is based on near-infrared observations carried out with the WIRCam instrument at CFHT over the footprint of the VIPERS spectroscopic survey and benefits from the high-quality optical photometry from the CFHTLS and ultraviolet observations with the GALEX satellite. The accuracy of our photometric redshifts is σ ∆z/(1+z) < 0.03 and 0.05 for the bright (i AB < 22.5) and faint (i AB > 22.5) samples, respectively. The galaxy stellar mass function is measured with ∼760 000 galaxies down to K s ∼ 22 and over an effective area of ∼22.4 deg 2 , the latter of which drastically reduces the statistical uncertainties (i.e. Poissonian error and cosmic variance). We point out the importance of carefully controlling the photometric calibration, whose effect becomes quickly dominant when statistical uncertainties are reduced, which will be a major issue for future cosmological surveys with EUCLID or LSST, for instance. By exploring the rest-frame (NUV−r) vs. (r − K s ) colour-colour diagram with which we separated star-forming and quiescent galaxies, (1) we find that the density of very massive log(M * /M ) > 11.5 galaxies is largely dominated by quiescent galaxies and increases by a factor 2 from z ∼ 1 to z ∼ 0.2, which allows for additional mass assembly through dry mergers. (2) We also confirm the scenario in which star formation activity is impeded above a stellar mass log(M sf /M ) = 10.64 ± 0.01. This value is found to be very stable at 0.2 < z < 1.5. (3) We discuss the existence of a main quenching channel that is followed by massive star-forming galaxies, and we finally (4) characterise another quenching mechanism that is required to explain the clear excess of low-mass quiescent galaxies that is observed at low redshift.

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The Overdensities of Galaxy Environments as a Function of Luminosity and Color

Cited by 308 publications

References 45 publications

The Environment of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The Environment of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Angular Clustering with Photometric Redshifts in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Bimodality in the Clustering Properties of Galaxies

The VIPERS Multi-Lambda Survey

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