No Arabic abstract
We present an analysis of the neutral hydrogen (HI) content and distribution of galaxies in groups as a function of their parent dark matter halo mass. The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey alpha.40 data release allows us, for the first time, to study the HI properties of over 740 galaxy groups in the volume of sky common to the SDSS and ALFALFA surveys. We assigned ALFALFA HI detections a group membership based on an existing magnitude/volume-limited SDSS DR7 group/cluster catalog. Additionally, we assigned group proximity membership to HI detected objects whose optical counterpart falls below the limiting optical magnitude--thereby not contributing substantially to the estimate of the group stellar mass, but significantly to the total group HI mass. We find that only 25% of the HI detected galaxies reside in groups or clusters, in contrast to approximately half of all optically detected galaxies. Further, we plot the relative positions of optical and HI detections in groups as a function of parent dark matter halo mass to reveal strong evidence that HI is being processed in galaxies as a result of the group environment: as optical membership increases, groups become increasingly deficient of HI rich galaxies at their center and the HI distribution of galaxies in the most massive groups starts to resemble the distribution observed in comparatively more extreme cluster environments. We find that the lowest HI mass objects lose their gas first as they are processed in the group environment, and it is evident that the infall of gas rich objects is important to the continuing growth of large scale structure at the present epoch, replenishing the neutral gas supply of groups. Finally, we compare our results to those of cosmological simulations and find that current models cannot simultaneously predict the HI selected halo occupation distribution for both low and high mass halos.
We use deep Herschel PACS and SPIRE observations in GOODSS, GOODSN and COSMOS to estimate the average dust mass (Mdust) of galaxies on a redshift-stellar mass (Mstar)-SFR grid. We study the scaling relations between Mdust, Mstar and SFR at z<=2.5. No clear evolution of Mdust is observed at fixed SFR and Mstar. We find a tight correlation between SFR and Mdust, likely a consequence of the Schmidt-Kennicutt (S-K) law. The Mstar-Mdust correlation observed by previous works flattens or sometimes disappears when fixing the SFR. Most of it likely derives from the combination of the Mdust-SFR and Mstar-SFR correlations. We then investigate the gas content as inferred by converting Mdust by assuming that the dust/gas ratio scales linearly with the gas metallicity. All galaxies in the sample follow, within uncertainties, the same SFR-Mgas relation (integrated S-K law), which broadly agrees with CO-based results for the bulk of the population, despite the completely different approaches. The majority of galaxies at z~2 form stars with an efficiency (SFE=SFR/Mgas) ~5 times higher than at z~0. It is not clear what fraction of such variation is an intrinsic redshift evolution and what fraction arises from selection effects. The gas fraction (fgas) decreases with Mstar and increases with SFR, and does not evolve with z at fixed Mstar and SFR. We explain these trends by introducing a universal relation between fgas, Mstar and SFR, non-evolving out to z~2.5. Galaxies move across this relation as their gas content evolves in time. We use the 3D fundamental fgas-Mstar-SFR relation and the redshift evolution of the Main Sequence to estimate the evolution of fgas in the average population of galaxies as a function of z and Mstar, and we find evidence a downsizing scenario.
We explore the clustering of galaxy groups in the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey to investigate the dependence of group bias and profile on separation scale and group mass. Due to the inherent uncertainty in estimating the group selection function, and hence the group auto-correlation function, we instead measure the projected galaxy--group cross-correlation function. We find that the group profile has a strong dependence on scale and group mass on scales $r_bot lesssim 1 h^{-1} mathrm{Mpc}$. We also find evidence that the most massive groups live in extended, overdense, structures. In the first application of marked clustering statistics to groups, we find that group-mass marked clustering peaks on scales comparable to the typical group radius of $r_bot approx 0.5 h^{-1} mathrm{Mpc}$. While massive galaxies are associated with massive groups, the marked statistics show no indication of galaxy mass segregation within groups. We show similar results from the IllustrisTNG simulations and the L-Galaxies model, although L-Galaxies shows an enhanced bias and galaxy mass dependence on small scales.
We analyse the stellar and hot gas content of 18 nearby, low-mass galaxy clusters, detected in redshift space and selected to have a dynamical mass 3E14<M/Msun<6E14, as measured from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey. We combine X-ray measurements from both Chandra and XMM with ground-based near-infrared observations from CTIO, AAT and CFHT to compare the mass in hot gas and stars to the dynamical mass and state of the clusters. Only 13 of the clusters are detected in X-ray emission, and for these systems we find that a range of 7-20 per cent of their baryonic mass, and <3 per cent of their dynamical mass, is detected in starlight, similar to what is observed in more massive clusters. In contrast, the five undetected clusters are underluminous in X-ray emission, by up to a factor 10, given their stellar mass. Although the velocity distribution of cluster members in these systems is indistinguishable from a Gaussian, all show subtle signs of being unrelaxed: either they lack a central, dominant galaxy, or the bright galaxy distribution is less concentrated and/or more elongated than the rest of the sample. Thus we conclude that low-mass clusters and groups selected from the velocity distribution of their galaxies exhibit a dichotomy in their hot gas properties. Either they are detected in X-ray, in which case they generally lie on the usual scaling relations, or they are completely undetected in X-ray emission. The non-detections may be partly related to the apparently young dynamical state of the clusters, but it remains a distinct possibility that some of these systems are exceptionally devoid of hot emitting gas as the result of its expulsion or rarefaction.
Determining the AGN content in structures of different mass/velocity dispersion and comparing them to higher mass/lower redshift analogs is important to understand how the AGN formation process is related to environmental properties. We use our well-tested cluster finding algorithm to identify structures in the GOODS North and South fields, exploiting the available spectroscopic redshifts and accurate photometric redshifts. We identify 9 structures in GOODS-south (presented in a previous paper) and 8 new structures in GOODS-north. We only consider structures where at least 2/3 of the members brighter than M_R=-20 have a spectroscopic redshift. For those group members that coincide with X-ray sources in the 4 and 2 Msec Chandra source catalogs respectively, we determine if the X-ray emission originates from AGN activity or it is related to the galaxies star-formation activity. We find that the fraction of AGN with Log L_H > 42 erg/s in galaxies with M_R < -20 is on average 6.3+-1.3%, much higher than in lower redshift groups of similar mass and more than double the fraction found in massive clusters at a similarly high redshift. We then explore the spatial distribution of AGN in the structures and find that they preferentially populate the outer regions. The colors of AGN host galaxies in structures tend to be confined to the green valley, thus avoiding the blue cloud and, partially, also the red-sequence, contrary to what happens in the field. We finally compare our results to the predictions of two sets of semi analytic models to investigate the evolution of AGN and evaluate potential triggering and fueling mechanisms. The outcome of this comparison attests the importance of galaxy encounters, not necessarily leading to mergers, as an efficient AGN triggering mechanism. (abridged)
How do galaxy properties (such as stellar mass, luminosity, star formation rate, and morphology) and their evolution depend on the mass of their host dark matter halo? Using the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) group catalogue, we address this question by exploring the dependence on host halo mass of the luminosity function (LF) and stellar mass function (SMF) for grouped galaxies subdivided by colour, morphology and central/satellite. We find that spheroidal galaxies in particular dominate the bright and massive ends of the LF and SMF, respectively. More massive haloes host more massive and more luminous central galaxies. The satellite LF and SMF respectively show a systematic brightening of characteristic magnitude, and increase in characteristic mass, with increasing halo mass. In contrast to some previous results, the faint-end and low-mass slopes show little systematic dependence on halo mass. Semi-analytic models and simulations show similar or enhanced dependence of central mass and luminosity on halo mass. Faint and low-mass simulated satellite galaxies are remarkably independent of halo mass, but the most massive satellites are more common in more massive groups. In the first investigation of low-redshift LF and SMF evolution in group environments, we find that the red/blue ratio of galaxies in groups has increased since redshift $z approx 0.3$ relative to the field population. This observation strongly suggests that quenching of star formation in galaxies as they are accreted into galaxy groups is a significant and ongoing process.