Abstract
We present a systematic study of the environmental impact on star formation activities of galaxies using a mass-complete sample of ∼170k galaxies at
z
< 4 from the latest COSMOS2020 catalog. ...At
z
< 1, we find that the mean star formation rate (SFR) of all galaxies decreases with increasing density of the environment. However, when we only consider star-forming galaxies, the mean SFR becomes independent of the environment at
z
< 1. At
z
> 2, we observe a clear positive correlation between the SFR and the density of the environment for all the galaxies. On the other hand, the stellar mass of the galaxies increases significantly with the environment at all redshifts except for star-forming galaxies at
z
< 1. The fraction of quiescent galaxies increases with increasing density of the environment at
z
< 2, and the morphology–density relation is confirmed to be present up to
z
∼ 1. We also find that environmental quenching is negligible at
z
> 1, whereas mass quenching is the dominant quenching mechanism for massive galaxies at all redshifts. Based on these results, we argue that stellar mass-regulated physical processes might be the major driving force for star formation activities of galaxies. At low redshift (
z
< 1) massive galaxies are quenched primarily due to their high mass, resulting in a normal SFR–density relation. At high redshift (
z
> 2) most of the galaxies are star-forming ones tightly following the star-forming main sequence, and the difference in their stellar mass in different environments naturally leads to a reversal of the SFR–density relation.
We present a detailed study of near-IR selected galaxies in a protocluster field at z = 3.13. Protocluster galaxies are selected using the available mutliwavelength data with the photometric ...redshifts (photo-z) at 2.9 < z < 3.3, reaching a mass completeness of . Diverse types of galaxies have been found in the field, including normal star-forming galaxies, quiescent galaxies, and dusty star-forming galaxies. The photo-z galaxies form two large overdense structures in the field, largely overlapping with the previously identified galaxy overdensities traced by Ly emitters (LAEs) and Lyman break galaxies, respectively. The northern overdensity consists of a large fraction of old and/or dusty galaxy populations, while the southern one is mainly composed of normal star-forming galaxies that are spatially correlated with the LAEs. This agrees with our previous study arguing the spatial offset of different galaxy overdensities may be due to halo assembly bias. Given the large end-to-end sizes of the two overdensities, one possibility is that they will form into a supercluster by the present day. We also find strong evidence that the star formation activities of the galaxies in the overdense protocluster regions are enhanced in comparison to their field counterparts, which suggests an accelerated mass assembly in this protocluster.
Abstract
We present a multiwavelength study of galaxies around D4UD01, a spectroscopically confirmed protocluster at
z
= 3.24, to investigate environmental trends. 450 galaxies are selected based on
...K
S
band detection with photometric redshifts (photo-
z
) at 3.0 <
z
< 3.4, among which ∼12% are classified as quiescent galaxies. The quiescent galaxies are among the most massive and reddest ones in the entire sample. We identify a large photo-
z
galaxy overdensity in the field, which lies close to the previously spectroscopically confirmed sources of the protocluster. We find that the quiescent galaxies are largely concentrated in the overdense protocluster region with a higher quiescent fraction, showing a sign of environmental quenching. Galaxies in the protocluster are forming faster than their field counterparts as seen in the stellar mass function, suggesting early and accelerated mass assembly in the overdense regions. Although weak evidence of suppressed star formation is found in the protocluster, the statistics are not significant enough to draw a definite conclusion. Our work sheds light on how the formation of massive galaxies is affected in the dense region of a protocluster when the universe was only 2 Gyr old.
ABSTRACT We present the discovery of three protoclusters at z ∼ 3-4 with spectroscopic confirmation in the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Deep Fields. In these fields, we investigate ...the large-scale projected sky distribution of z ∼ 3-6 Lyman-break galaxies and identify 21 protocluster candidates from regions that are overdense at more than 4 overdensity significance. Based on cosmological simulations, it is expected that more than 76% of these candidates will evolve into a galaxy cluster of at least a halo mass of 1014 M at z = 0. We perform follow-up spectroscopy for eight of the candidates using Subaru/FOCAS, Keck II/DEIMOS, and Gemini-N/GMOS. In total we target 462 dropout candidates and obtain 138 spectroscopic redshifts. We confirm three real protoclusters at z = 3-4 with more than five members spectroscopically identified and find one to be an incidental overdense region by mere chance alignment. The other four candidate regions at z ∼ 5-6 require more spectroscopic follow-up in order to be conclusive. A z = 3.67 protocluster, which has 11 spectroscopically confirmed members, shows a remarkable core-like structure composed of a central small region (<0.5 physical Mpc) and an outskirts region (∼1.0 physical Mpc). The Ly equivalent widths of members of the protocluster are significantly smaller than those of field galaxies at the same redshift, while there is no difference in the UV luminosity distributions. These results imply that some environmental effects start operating as early as at z ∼ 4 along with the growth of the protocluster structure. This study provides an important benchmark for our analysis of protoclusters in the upcoming Subaru/HSC imaging survey and its spectroscopic follow-up with the Subaru/PFS that will detect thousands of protoclusters up to z ∼ 6.
In the hierarchical theory of galaxy formation, a galaxy overdensity is a hallmark of a massive cosmic structure. However, it is less well understood how different types of galaxies trace the ...underlying large-scale structure. Motivated by the discovery of a z = 3.13 protocluster, we examine how the same structure is populated by Ly -emitting galaxies (LAEs). To this end, we have undertaken a deep narrowband imaging survey sampling Ly emission at this redshift. Of the 93 LAE candidates within a 36′ × 36′ (70 × 70 Mpc2) field, 21 galaxies form a significant surface overdensity (δ , LAE = 3.3 0.9), which is spatially segregated from the Lyman break galaxy (LBG) overdensity. One possible interpretation is that they trace two separate structures of comparable masses ( 1015 M ) where the latter is hosted by a halo assembled at an earlier time. We speculate that the dearth of LAEs in the LBG overdensity region may signal the role of halo assembly bias in galaxy formation, which would suggest that different search techniques may be biased accordingly to the formation age or dynamical state of the host halo. The median Ly and UV luminosity is 30%-70% higher for the protocluster LAEs relative to the field. This difference cannot be explained by the galaxy overdensity alone and may require a top-heavy mass function, higher star formation efficiency for protocluster halos, or suppression of galaxy formation in low-mass halos. A luminous Ly blob and an ultramassive galaxy found in this region paint a picture consistent with the expected early growth of galaxies in clusters.
We report 14 and 26 protocluster candidates at z = 5.7 and 6.6 over 14 and 16 deg2 areas, respectively, selected from 2230 (259) Ly emitters (LAEs) photometrically (spectroscopically) identified ...using Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) deep images (Keck, Subaru, and Magellan spectra, and literature data). Six out of the 40 protocluster candidates include one to 13 spectroscopically confirmed LAEs. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations to estimate how many protocluster candidates are found by chance for randomly distributed sources, and find that the effective number of protocluster candidates at z = 5.7 (6.6) is six (five). By comparing with the cosmological Ly radiative transfer (RT) model reproducing the LAEs with reionization effects, we find that more than half of these protocluster candidates are progenitors of present-day clusters with mass of . We then investigate the correlation between the LAE overdensity δ and the Ly rest-frame equivalent width , because the cosmological Ly RT model suggests that the slope of the -δ relation steepens toward the epoch of cosmic reionization (EoR), due to the existence of ionized bubbles around galaxy overdensities easing the escape of Ly emission from the partly neutral intergalactic medium. The available HSC data suggest that the slope of the -δ correlation does not evolve from the post-reionization epoch, z = 5.7, to the EoR, z = 6.6, beyond the moderately large statistical errors. There is a possibility that we could detect the evolution of the -δ relation from z = 5.7 to 7.3 using the upcoming HSC observations that will provide large samples of LAEs at z = 6.6-7.3.
We have carried out follow-up spectroscopy on three overdense regions of g- and r-dropout galaxies in the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Deep Fields, finding two new protoclusters at z ...= 4.898 and 3.721 and a possible protocluster at z = 3.834. The z = 3.721 protocluster overlaps with a previously identified protocluster at z = 3.675. The redshift separation between these two protoclusters is Δz = 0.05, which is slightly larger than the size of typical protoclusters. Therefore, if they are not the progenitors of a >1015 M☉ halo, they would grow into closely located independent halos like a supercluster. The other protocluster at z = 4.898 is also surrounded by smaller galaxy groups. These systems including protoclusters and neighboring groups are regarded as the early phase of superclusters. We quantify the spatial distribution of member galaxies of the protoclusters at z = 3.675 and 3.721 by fitting triaxial ellipsoids, finding a tentative difference: one has a pancake-like shape, while the other is filamentary. This could indicate that these two protoclusters are in different stages of formation. We investigate the relation between redshift and the velocity dispersion of protoclusters, including other protoclusters from the literature, in order to compare their dynamical states. Although there is no significant systematic trend in the velocity dispersions of protoclusters with redshift, the distribution is skewed to higher velocity dispersion over the redshift range of z = 2-6. This could be interpreted as two phases of cluster formation, one dominated by the steady accretion of galaxies and the other by the merging between group-size halos, perhaps depending on the surrounding large-scale environments.
We perform a stacking analysis of Planck, AKARI, Infrared Astronomical Satellite, Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, and Herschel images of the largest number of (candidate) protoclusters at z ∼ ...3.8 selected from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program. Stacking the images of the 179 candidate protoclusters, the combined infrared (IR) emission of the protocluster galaxies in the observed 12-850 m wavelength range is successfully detected with >5 significance (at Planck). This is the first time that the average IR spectral energy distribution (SED) of a protocluster has been constrained at z ∼ 4. The observed IR SEDs of the protoclusters exhibit significant excess emission in the mid-IR compared to that expected from typical star-forming galaxies (SFGs). They are reproduced well using SED models of intense starburst galaxies with warm/hot dust heated by young stars, or by a population of active galactic nucleus (AGN)/SFG composites. For the pure star-forming model, a total IR (from 8-1000 m) luminosity of 19.3 − 4.2 + 0.6 × 10 13 L and a star formation rate of 16.3 − 7.8 + 1.0 × 10 3 M yr−1 are found, whereas for the AGN/SFG composite model, 5.1 − 2.5 + 2.5 × 10 13 L and 2.1 − 1.7 + 6.3 × 10 3 M yr−1 are found. Uncertainty remains in the total SFRs; however, the IR luminosities of the most massive protoclusters are likely to continue increasing up to z ∼ 4. Meanwhile, no significant IR flux excess is observed around optically selected QSOs at similar redshifts, which confirms previous results. Our results suggest that the z ∼ 4 protoclusters trace dense, intensely star-forming environments that may also host obscured AGNs missed by the selection in the optical.
We present the results of clustering analyses of Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) at , 4, and 5 using the final data release of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS). Deep- and ...wide-field images of the CFHTLS Deep Survey enable us to obtain sufficiently accurate two-point angular correlation functions to apply a halo occupation distribution analysis. The mean halo masses, calculated as , increase with the stellar-mass limit of LBGs. The threshold halo mass to have a central galaxy, follows the same increasing trend as the low-z results, whereas the threshold halo mass to have a satellite galaxy, M1, shows higher values at than , over the entire stellar mass range. Satellite fractions of dropout galaxies, even at less massive halos, are found to drop sharply, from z = 2 down to less than 0.04, at . These results suggest that satellite galaxies form inefficiently within dark halos at , even for less massive satellites with . We compute stellar-to-halo mass ratios (SHMRs) assuming a main sequence of galaxies, which is found to provide SHMRs consistent with those derived from a spectral energy distribution fitting method. The observed SHMRs are in good agreement with model predictions based on the abundance-matching method, within confidence intervals. We derive observationally, for the first time, , which is the halo mass at a peak in the star-formation efficiency, at , and it shows a small increasing trend with cosmic time at . In addition, and its normalization are found to be almost unchanged during . Our study provides observational evidence that galaxy formation is ubiquitously most efficient near a halo mass of over cosmic time.
Abstract
We present the results from ALMA CO(3–2) observations of 66 Hα-selected galaxies in three protoclusters around radio galaxies: PKS 1138−262 ($z$ = 2.16), USS 1558−003 ($z$ = 2.53), and 4C ...23.56 ($z$ = 2.49). The pointing areas have an overdensity of ∼100 compared to the mean surface number density of galaxies in field environments. We detect the CO emission line in 16 star-forming galaxies, including six previously published galaxies, to measure the molecular gas mass. In the stellar mass range of 10.5 < log (Mstar/M⊙) < 11.0, the protocluster galaxies have larger gas mass fractions and longer gas depletion timescales compared to the scaling relations established for field galaxies. On the other hand, the amounts of molecular gas in more massive galaxies with log (Mstar/M⊙) > 11.0 are comparable in mass to the scaling relation, or smaller. Our results suggest that the environmental effects on gas properties are mass dependent: in high-density environments, gas accretion through cosmic filaments is accelerated in less massive galaxies, while this is suppressed in the most massive system.
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