Persistence of the colour–density relation and efficient environmental quenching to z ∼ 1.4
Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: ABSTRACT Using ∼5000 spectroscopically confirmed galaxies drawn from the Observations of Redshift Evolution in Large Scale Environments (ORELSE) survey we investigate the relationship between colour and galaxy density for galaxy populations of various stellar masses in the redshift range 0.55 ≤ z ≤ 1.4. The fraction of galaxies with colours consistent with no ongoing star formation (fq) is broadly observed to increase with increasing stellar mass, increasing galaxy density, and decreasing redshift, with clear differences observed in fq between field and group/cluster galaxies at the highest redshifts studied. We use a semi-empirical model to generate a suite of mock group/cluster galaxies unaffected by environmentally specific processes and compare these galaxies at fixed stellar mass and redshift to observed populations to constrain the efficiency of environmentally driven quenching (Ψconvert). High-density environments from 0.55 ≤ z ≤ 1.4 appear capable of efficiently quenching galaxies with $\log (\mathcal {M}_{\ast }/\mathcal {M}_{\odot })\gt 10.45$. Lower stellar mass galaxies also appear efficiently quenched at the lowest redshifts studied here, but this quenching efficiency is seen to drop precipitously with increasing redshift. Quenching efficiencies, combined with simulated group/cluster accretion histories and results on the star formation rate-density relation from a companion ORELSE study, are used to constrain the average time from group/cluster accretion to quiescence and the elapsed time between accretion and the inception of the quenching event. These time-scales were constrained to be 〈tconvert〉 = 2.4 ± 0.3 and 〈tdelay〉 = 1.3 ± 0.4 Gyr, respectively, for galaxies with $\log (\mathcal {M}_{\ast }/\mathcal {M}_{\odot })\gt 10.45$ and 〈tconvert〉 = 3.3 ± 0.3 and 〈tdelay〉 = 2.2 ± 0.4 Gyr for lower stellar mass galaxies. These quenching efficiencies and associated time-scales are used to rule out certain environmental mechanisms as being the primary processes responsible for transforming the star formation properties of galaxies over this 4 Gyr window in cosmic time.
Institutions: University of California, Davis, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, University of Hawaii System, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, California Institute of Technology, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Université Paris Cité, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Université, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Laboratoire d’Etudes du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique et Atmosphères, Aix-Marseille Université, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Colby College
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funders: National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, W. M. Keck Foundation, California Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, University of Hawai'i, European Southern Observatory, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, East Asian Core Observatories Association, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, University of California, Davis, Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, France-Berkeley Fund, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Institut national des sciences de l'Univers, National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka
OpenAlex ID: W2904431396