RT Journal Article
T1 Lack of influence of the environment in the earliest stages of massive galaxy formation
A1 Annunziatella, Marianna
A1 Pérez González, Pablo Guillermo
A1 García Argumánez, Ángela
A1 Barro, Guillermo
A1 Alcalde Pampliega, Belén
A1 Constantin, Luca
A1 Koekemoer, Anton M.
A1 Mérida, Rosa M.
AB We investigate how the environment affects the assembly history of massive galaxies. For that purpose, we make use of SHARDS and HST spectro-photometric data, whose depth, spectral resolution, and wavelength coverage allow to perform a detailed analysis of the stellar emission as well as obtaining unprecedentedly accurate photometric redshifts. This expedites a sufficiently accurate estimate of the local environment and a robust derivation of the star formation histories of a complete sample of 332 massive galaxies (> 10^(10)Mꙩ) at redshift 1 ≤ z ≤ 1.5 in the GOODS-N field. We find that massive galaxies in this redshift range avoid the lowest density environments. Moreover, we observed that the oldest galaxies in our sample with with mass-weighted formation redshift z_(M−w) ≥ 2.5, avoid the highest density regions, preferring intermediate environments. Younger galaxies, including those with active star formation, tend to live in denser environments (Σ = 5.0^(24.8)_(1.1) × 10^(10)MꙩMpc^(−2)). This behavior could be expected if those massive galaxies starting their formation first would merge with neighbors and sweep their environment earlier. On the other hand, galaxies formed more recently (z_(M−w) < 2.5) are accreted into large scale structures at later times and we are observing them before sweeping their environment or, alternatively, they are less likely to affect their environment. However, given that both number and mass surface densities of neighbor galaxies is relatively low for the oldest galaxies, our results reveal a very weak correlation between environment and the first formation stages of the earliest massive galaxies.
PB Oxford University Press.
SN 0035-8711
YR 2022
FD 2022-12-16
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/73400
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/73400
LA eng
NO © 2022 The Author(s). MA acknowledges financial support from Comunidad de Madrid under Atracción de Talento grant 2020-T2/TIC19971. MA and PGPG acknowledge support from Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades through grant PGC2018-093499-B-I00. A. García-Argumánez acknowledges the support of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid through the predoctoral grant CT17/17-CT18/17. This work has made use of the Rainbow Cosmological Surveys Database, which is operated by the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB/INTA), partnered with the University of California Observatories at Santa Cruz (UCO/Lick,UCSC).
NO Comunidad de Madrid under Atracción de Talento
NO Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
NO Universidad Complutense de Madrid through the predoctoral grant
DS Docta Complutense
RD 6 oct 2024