No Arabic abstract
Most galaxies in clusters have supermassive black holes at their center, and a fraction of those supermassive black holes show strong activity. These active galactic nuclei(AGNs) are an important probe of environmental dependence of galaxy evolution, intra-cluster medium, and cluster-scale feedback. We investigated AGN fraction in one of the largest samples of X-ray selected clusters from the ROSAT and their immediate surrounding field regions below z < 0.5. We found lower average AGN fraction in clusters, (2.37+-0.39)% than for the fields (5.12+-0.16)%. The lower AGN fractions in clusters were measured, after dividing the clusters into five redshift intervals between 0.0 and 0.5, in each redshift interval, and we found an increase in the fraction for both cluster and field galaxies with redshift below z < 0.5, which clearly indicates an environment and redshift dependence. We further divided the clusters into low-mass and high-mass objects using a mass cut at log(M500/Msun) = 13.5, finding comparable AGN fractions for both classifications, while a significantly higher AGN fraction in field. We also measured increasing AGN fractions with clustercentric distance for all redshift bins, further confirming the environmental dependence of AGN activities. In addition, we did not find an obvious trend between AGN fraction and SDSS-R absolute magnitudes among different redshift bins. We conclude that the lower AGN fraction in clusters relative to fields indicate that factors, such as inefficient galaxy mergers and ram pressure stripping cause a deficit of cold gas available in high density regions to fuel the central super-massive black hole. Clusters and fields in present universe have lost more gas relative to their high redshift counterparts resulting in a lower AGN fraction observed today.
We present new gas kinematic observations with the OSIRIS instrument at the GTC for galaxies in the Cl1604 cluster system at z=0.9. These observations together with a collection of other cluster samples at different epochs analyzed by our group are used to study the evolution of the Tully-Fisher, velocity-size and stellar mass-angular momentum relations in dense environments over cosmic time. We use 2D and 3D spectroscopy to analyze the kinematics of our cluster galaxies and extract their maximum rotation velocities (Vmax). Our methods are consistently applied to all our cluster samples which make them ideal for an evolutionary comparison. Up to redshift one, our cluster samples show evolutionary trends compatible with previous observational results in the field and in accordance with semianalytical models and hydrodynamical simulations concerning the Tully-Fisher and velocity-size relations. However, we find a factor 3 drop in disk sizes and an average B-band luminosity enhancement of 2 mag by z=1.5. We discuss the role that different cluster-specific interactions may play in producing this observational result. In addition, we find that our intermediate-to-high redshift cluster galaxies follow parallel sequences with respect to the local specific angular momentum-stellar mass relation, although displaying lower angular momentum values in comparison with field samples at similar redshifts. This can be understood by the stronger interacting nature of dense environments with respect to the field.
Galaxy interactions and mergers are thought to play an important role in the evolution of galaxies. Studies in the nearby universe show a higher AGN fraction in interacting and merging galaxies than their isolated counterparts, indicating that such interactions are important contributors to black hole growth. To investigate the evolution of this role at higher redshifts, we have compiled the largest known sample of major spectroscopic galaxy pairs (2381 with $Delta V <5000$ km s$^{-1}$) at $0.5<z<3.0$ from observations in the COSMOS and CANDELS surveys. We identify X-ray and IR AGN among this kinematic pair sample, a visually identified sample of mergers and interactions, and a mass-, redshift-, and environment-matched control sample for each in order to calculate AGN fractions and the level of AGN enhancement as a function of relative velocity, redshift, and X-ray luminosity. While we see a slight increase in AGN fraction with decreasing projected separation, overall, we find no significant enhancement relative to the control sample at any separation. In the closest projected separation bin ($<25$ kpc, $Delta V <1000$ km s$^{-1}$), we find enhancements of a factor of 0.94$^{+0.21}_{-0.16}$ and 1.00$^{+0.58}_{-0.31}$ for X-ray and IR-selected AGN, respectively. While we conclude that galaxy interactions do not significantly enhance AGN activity on average over $0.5<z<3.0$ at these separations, given the errors and the small sample size at the closest projected separations, our results would be consistent with the presence of low-level AGN enhancement.
We estimate the Intracluster Light (ICL) component within a sample of 18 clusters detected in XMM Cluster Survey (XCS) data using deep ($sim$ 26.8 mag) Hyper Suprime Cam Subaru Strategic Program DR1 (HSC-SSP DR1) $i$-band data. We apply a rest-frame ${mu}_{B} = 25 mathrm{mag/arcsec^{2}}$ isophotal threshold to our clusters, below which we define light as the ICL within an aperture of $R_{X,500}$ (X-ray estimate of $R_{500}$) centered on the Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG). After applying careful masking and corrections for flux losses from background subtraction, we recover $sim$20% of the ICL flux, approximately four times our estimate of the typical background at the same isophotal level ($sim$ 5%). We find that the ICL makes up about $sim$ 24% of the total cluster stellar mass on average ($sim$ 41% including the flux contained in the BCG within 50 kpc); this value is well-matched with other observational studies and semi-analytic/numerical simulations, but is significantly smaller than results from recent hydrodynamical simulations (even when measured in an observationally consistent way). We find no evidence for any links between the amount of ICL flux with cluster mass, but find a growth rate of $2-4$ for the ICL between $0.1 < z < 0.5$. We conclude that the ICL is the dominant evolutionary component of stellar mass in clusters from $z sim 1$. Our work highlights the need for a consistent approach when measuring ICL alongside the need for deeper imaging, in order to unambiguously measure the ICL across as broad a redshift range as possible (e.g. 10-year stacked imaging from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory).
We present a series of results from a clustering analysis of the first data release of the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) Deep Extragalactic Observations (VIDEO) survey. VIDEO is the only survey currently capable of probing the bulk of stellar mass in galaxies at redshifts corresponding to the peak of star formation on degree scales. Galaxy clustering is measured with the two-point correlation function, which is calculated using a non parametric kernel based density estimator. We use our measurements to investigate the connection between the galaxies and the host dark matter halo using a halo occupation distribution methodology, deriving bias, satellite fractions, and typical host halo masses for stellar masses between $10^{9.35}M_{odot}$ and $10^{10.85}M_{odot}$, at redshifts $0.5<z<1.7$. Our results show typical halo mass increasing with stellar mass (with moderate scatter) and bias increasing with stellar mass and redshift consistent with previous studies. We find the satellite fraction increased towards low redshifts, increasing from $sim 5%$ at $zsim 1.5$, to $sim 20%$ at $zsim 0.6$, also increasing for lower mass galaxies. We combine our results to derive the stellar mass to halo mass ratio for both satellites and centrals over a range of halo masses and find the peak corresponding to the halo mass with maximum star formation efficiency to be $ sim 2 times10^{12} M_{odot}$ over cosmic time, finding no evidence for evolution.
We investigate the relationship between environment and galaxy evolution in the redshift range $0.5 < z < 1.0$. Galaxy overdensities are selected using a Friends-of-Friends algorithm, applied to deep photometric data in the Ultra-Deep Survey (UDS) field. A study of the resulting stellar mass functions reveals clear differences between cluster and field environments, with a strong excess of low-mass rapidly quenched galaxies in cluster environments compared to the field. Cluster environments also show a corresponding deficit of young, low-mass star-forming galaxies, which show a sharp radial decline towards cluster centres. By comparing mass functions and radial distributions, we conclude that young star-forming galaxies are rapidly quenched as they enter overdense environments, becoming post-starburst galaxies before joining the red sequence. Our results also point to the existence of two environmental quenching pathways operating in galaxy clusters, operating on different timescales. Fast quenching acts on galaxies with high specific star-formation rates, operating on timescales shorter than the cluster dynamical time ($ < 1$ Gyr). In contrast, slow quenching affects galaxies with moderate specific star-formation rates, regardless of their stellar mass, and acts on longer timescales ($gtrsim 1$ Gyr). Of the cluster galaxies in the stellar mass range $9.0 < log(M_{*}/M_{odot}) < 10.5$ quenched during this epoch, we find that 73% were transformed through fast quenching, while the remaining 27% followed the slow quenching route.