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Conditional quenching: a detailed look at the SFR−density relation at |$z$| ∼ 0.9 from ORELSE.
- Source :
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . Apr2019, Vol. 484 Issue 4, p4695-4710. 16p. - Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- We present a study of the star formation rate (SFR)–density relation at |$z$| ∼ 0.9 using data drawn from the Observations of Redshift Evolution in Large Scale Environments (ORELSE) survey. We find that SFR does depend on environment, but only for intermediate-stellar mass galaxies (1010.1 < M */M⊙ < 1010.8) wherein the median SFR at the highest densities is 0.2–0.3 dex less than at lower densities at a significance of 4σ. Galaxies that are more/less massive than this have SFRs that vary at most by |${\approx }20{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$| across all environments, but show no statistically significant trend. We further split galaxies into low-redshift (|$z$| ∼ 0.8) and high-redshift (|$z$| ∼ 1.05) subsamples and observe nearly identical behaviour. We devise a simple toy model to explore possible star formation histories for galaxies evolving between these redshifts. The key assumption in this model is that star-forming galaxies in a given environment-stellar mass bin can be described as a superposition of two exponential time-scales (SFR ∝  e − t /τ): a long−τ time-scale with τ = 4 Gyr to simulate 'normal' star-forming galaxies, and a short-τ time-scale with free τ (between 0.3 ≤ τ/Gyr ≤ 2) to simulate galaxies on a quenching trajectory. In general, we find that galaxies residing in low/high environmental densities are more heavily weighted to the long-τ/short-τ pathways, respectively, which we argue is a signature of environmental quenching. Furthermore, for intermediate-stellar mass galaxies this transition begins at intermediate-density environments suggesting that environmental quenching is relevant in group-like haloes and/or cluster infall regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00358711
- Volume :
- 484
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 135444226
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz342