Effect of Local Environment and Stellar Mass on Galaxy Quenching and Morphology at 0.5 < z < 2.0

Journal Article · Sun Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 2017 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/AA8B75· OSTI ID:22875730

Kawinwanichakij, Lalitwadee; Papovich, Casey; Quadri, Ryan F.; Forrest, Ben ^[1]; Glazebrook, Karl; Kacprzak, Glenn G.; Allen, Rebecca J.; Croton, Darren J.; Nanayakkara, Themiya ^[2]; Bell, Eric F. ^[3]; Dekel, Avishai ^[4]; Ferguson, Henry C.; Grogin, Norman A.; Koekemoer, Anton M.; Lucas, Ray A. ^[5]; Guo, Yicheng ^[6]; Kocevski, Dale D. ^[7]; Labbé, Ivo ^[8]; Spitler, Lee R. ^[9]; Straatman, Caroline M. S., ^[10] ; others, and

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A and M University, College Station, TX 77843-4242 (United States)
2. Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University, Hawthorn, VIC 3122 (Australia)
3. Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 1085 South University Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1107 (United States)
4. Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904 (Israel)
5. Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
6. UCO/Lick Observatory, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
7. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Colby College, Waterville, ME 04901 (United States)
8. Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden (Netherlands)
9. Australian Astronomical Observatory, P.O. Box 915, North Ryde, NSW 1670 (Australia)
10. Max-Planck Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117, Heidelberg (Germany)

We study galactic star formation activity as a function of environment and stellar mass over 0.5 < z < 2.0 using the FourStar Galaxy Evolution (ZFOURGE) survey. We estimate the galaxy environment using a Bayesian-motivated measure of the distance to the third nearest neighbor for galaxies to the stellar mass completeness of our survey, log(M/M{sub ⊙})>9 (9.5) at z = 1.3 (2.0). This method, when applied to a mock catalog with the photometric-redshift precision (σ{sub z}/(1+z)≲0.02) of ZFOURGE, accurately recovers galaxies in low- and high-density environments. We quantify the environmental quenching efficiency and show that at z>0.5, it depends on galaxy stellar mass, demonstrating that the effects of quenching related to (stellar) mass and environment are not separable. In high-density environments, the mass and environmental quenching efficiencies are comparable for massive galaxies (log(M/M{sub ⊙})≳10.5) at all redshifts. For lower-mass galaxies (log(M/M){sub ⊙})≲10), the environmental quenching efficiency is very low at z≳1.5, but increases rapidly with decreasing redshift. Environmental quenching can account for nearly all quiescent lower-mass galaxies (log(M/M{sub ⊙})∼9--10), which appear primarily at z≲1.0. The morphologies of lower-mass quiescent galaxies are inconsistent with those expected of recently quenched star-forming galaxies. Some environmental process must transform the morphologies on similar timescales as the environmental quenching itself. The evolution of the environmental quenching favors models that combine gas starvation (as galaxies become satellites) with gas exhaustion through star formation and outflows (“overconsumption”), and additional processes such as galaxy interactions, tidal stripping, and disk fading to account for the morphological differences between the quiescent and star-forming galaxy populations.

• OSTI ID: 22875730
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 847; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
CATALOGS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
EFFICIENCY
GALACTIC EVOLUTION
GALAXIES
INTERACTIONS
MASS
RED SHIFT
SATELLITES
STAR EVOLUTION
STARS
STRIPPING