We explore the simple inter-relationships between mass, star formation rate, and environment in the SDSS, zCOSMOS, and other deep surveys. We take a purely empirical approach in identifying those ...features of galaxy evolution that are demanded by the data and then explore the analytic consequences of these. We show that the differential effects of mass and environment are completely separable to z {approx} 1, leading to the idea of two distinct processes of 'mass quenching' and 'environment quenching'. The effect of environment quenching, at fixed over-density, evidently does not change with epoch to z {approx} 1 in zCOSMOS, suggesting that the environment quenching occurs as large-scale structure develops in the universe, probably through the cessation of star formation in 30%-70% of satellite galaxies. In contrast, mass quenching appears to be a more dynamic process, governed by a quenching rate. We show that the observed constancy of the Schechter M* and {alpha}{sub s} for star-forming galaxies demands that the quenching of galaxies around and above M* must follow a rate that is statistically proportional to their star formation rates (or closely mimic such a dependence). We then postulate that this simple mass-quenching law in fact holds over a much broader range of stellar mass (2 dex) and cosmic time. We show that the combination of these two quenching processes, plus some additional quenching due to merging naturally produces (1) a quasi-static single Schechter mass function for star-forming galaxies with an exponential cutoff at a value M* that is set uniquely by the constant of proportionality between the star formation and mass quenching rates and (2) a double Schechter function for passive galaxies with two components. The dominant component (at high masses) is produced by mass quenching and has exactly the same M* as the star-forming galaxies but a faint end slope that differs by {Delta}{alpha}{sub s} {approx} 1. The other component is produced by environment effects and has the same M* and {alpha}{sub s} as the star-forming galaxies but an amplitude that is strongly dependent on environment. Subsequent merging of quenched galaxies will modify these predictions somewhat in the denser environments, mildly increasing M* and making {alpha}{sub s} slightly more negative. All of these detailed quantitative inter-relationships between the Schechter parameters of the star-forming and passive galaxies, across a broad range of environments, are indeed seen to high accuracy in the SDSS, lending strong support to our simple empirically based model. We find that the amount of post-quenching 'dry merging' that could have occurred is quite constrained. Our model gives a prediction for the mass function of the population of transitory objects that are in the process of being quenched. Our simple empirical laws for the cessation of star formation in galaxies also naturally produce the 'anti-hierarchical' run of mean age with mass for passive galaxies, as well as the qualitative variation of formation timescale indicated by the relative {alpha}-element abundances.
Abstract
We present a rest-frame UV–optical (
λ
= 2500–6400 Å) stacked spectrum representative of massive quiescent galaxies at 1.0 <
z
< 1.3 with log(
M
*
/
M
⊙
) > 10.8. The stack is constructed ...using VANDELS survey data, combined with new KMOS observations. We apply two independent full-spectral-fitting approaches, measuring a total metallicity Z/H = −0.13 ± 0.08 with
Bagpipes
and Z/H = 0.04 ± 0.14 with
Alf
, a fall of ∼0.2–0.3 dex compared with the local universe. We also measure an iron abundance Fe/H = −0.18 ± 0.08, a fall of ∼0.15 dex compared with the local universe. We measure the alpha enhancement via the magnesium abundance, obtaining Mg/Fe = 0.23 ± 0.12, consistent with galaxies of similar mass in the local universe, indicating no evolution in the average alpha enhancement of log(
M
*
/
M
⊙
) ∼ 11 quiescent galaxies over the last ∼8 Gyr. This suggests the very high alpha enhancements recently reported for several bright
z
∼ 1–2 quiescent galaxies are due to their extreme masses, log(
M
*
/
M
⊙
) ≳ 11.5, in accordance with the well-known downsizing trend, rather than being typical of the
z
≳ 1 population. The metallicity evolution we observe with redshift (falling Z/H, Fe/H, constant Mg/Fe) is consistent with recent studies. We recover a mean stellar age of
2.5
−
0.4
+
0.6
Gyr, corresponding to a formation redshift
z
form
=
2.4
−
0.3
+
0.6
. Recent studies have obtained varying average formation redshifts for
z
≳ 1 massive quiescent galaxies, and, as these studies report consistent metallicities, we identify models with different star formation histories as the most likely cause. Larger spectroscopic samples from upcoming ground-based instruments will provide precise constraints on ages and metallicities at
z
≳ 1. Combining these with precise stellar mass functions for
z
> 2 quiescent galaxies from the James Webb Space Telescope will provide an independent test of formation redshifts derived from spectral fitting.
Recent work has demonstrated that it is important to constrain the dynamics of cosmological perturbations, in addition to the evolution of the background, if we want to distinguish among different ...models of the dark sector. Especially the anisotropic stress of the (possibly effective) dark energy fluid has been shown to be an important discriminator between modified gravity and dark energy models. In this paper we use approximate analytical solutions of the perturbation equations in the presence of viscosity to study how the anisotropic stress affects the weak lensing and galaxy power spectrum. We then forecast how sensitive the photometric and spectroscopic Euclid surveys will be to both the speed of sound and the viscosity of our effective dark energy fluid when using weak lensing tomography and the galaxy power spectrum. We find that Euclid alone can only constrain models with a very small speed of sound and viscosity, while it will need the help of other observables in order to give interesting constraints on models with a sound speed close to one. This conclusion is also supported by the expected Bayes factor between models.
We present a sample of 34 spectroscopically confirmed BzK-selected ~1011M⊙ quiescent galaxies (pBzK) in the COSMOS field. The targets were initially observed with VIMOS on the VLT to facilitate the ...calibration of the photometric redshifts of massive galaxies at z ≳ 1.5. Here we describe the reduction and analysis of the data, and the spectrophotometric properties of these pBzK galaxies. In particular, using a spatially resolved median 2D spectrum, we find that the fraction of stellar populations with ages <1 Gyr is at least 3 times higher in the outer regions of the pBzK galaxies than in their cores. This results in a mild age gradient of Δage ≤ 0.4 Gyr over ~6 kpc and suggests either the occurrence of widespread rejuvenation episodes or that inside-out quenching played a role in the passivization of this galaxy population. We also report on low-level star formation rates derived from the OII3727 Å emission line, with SFROII ~ 3.7−4.5M⊙ yr-1. This estimate is confirmed by an independent measurement on a separate sample of similarly-selected quiescent galaxies in the COSMOS field, using stacked far-infrared data (SFRFIR ~ 2−4M⊙ yr-1). This second, photometric sample also displays significant excess at 1.4 GHz, suggestive of the presence of radio-mode AGN activity.
The zCOSMOS 10k-Bright Spectroscopic Sample Lilly, Simon J; Le Brun, Vincent; Maier, Christian ...
The Astrophysical journal. Supplement series,
10/2009, Volume:
184, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We present spectroscopic redshifts of a large sample of galaxies with I AB < 22.5 in the COSMOS field, measured from spectra of 10,644 objects that have been obtained in the first two years of ...observations in the zCOSMOS-bright redshift survey. These include a statistically complete subset of 10,109 objects. The average accuracy of individual redshifts is 110 km s-1, independent of redshift. The reliability of individual redshifts is described by a Confidence Class that has been empirically calibrated through repeat spectroscopic observations of over 600 galaxies. There is very good agreement between spectroscopic and photometric redshifts for the most secure Confidence Classes. For the less secure Confidence Classes, there is a good correspondence between the fraction of objects with a consistent photometric redshift and the spectroscopic repeatability, suggesting that the photometric redshifts can be used to indicate which of the less secure spectroscopic redshifts are likely right and which are probably wrong, and to give an indication of the nature of objects for which we failed to determine a redshift. Using this approach, we can construct a spectroscopic sample that is 99% reliable and which is 88% complete in the sample as a whole, and 95% complete in the redshift range 0.5 < z < 0.8. The luminosity and mass completeness levels of the zCOSMOS-bright sample of galaxies is also discussed.
We present the first observations of foreground Lyα forest absorption from high-redshift galaxies, targeting 24 star-forming galaxies (SFGs) with z ~ 2.3-2.8 within a 5' × 14' region of the COSMOS ...field. The transverse sightline separation is ~2 h-1 Mpc comoving, allowing us to create a tomographic reconstruction of the three-dimensional (3D) Lyα forest absorption field over the redshift range 2.20 ≤ z ≤ 2.45. The resulting map covers 6 h-1 Mpc × 14 h-1 Mpc in the transverse plane and 230 h-1 Mpc along the line of sight with a spatial resolution of ≈3.5 h-1 Mpc, and is the first high-fidelity map of a large-scale structure on ~ Mpc scales at z > 2. Our map reveals significant structures with ≳10 h-1 Mpc extent, including several spanning the entire transverse breadth, providing qualitative evidence for the filamentary structures predicted to exist in the high-redshift cosmic web. Simulated reconstructions with the same sightline sampling, spectral resolution, and signal-to-noise ratio recover the salient structures present in the underlying 3D absorption fields. Using data from other surveys, we identified 18 galaxies with known redshifts coeval with our map volume, enabling a direct comparison with our tomographic map. This shows that galaxies preferentially occupy high-density regions, in qualitative agreement with the same comparison applied to simulations. Our results establish the feasibility of the CLAMATO survey, which aims to obtain Lyα forest spectra for ~1000 SFGs over ~1 deg2 of the COSMOS field, in order to map out the intergalactic medium large-scale structure at 〈z〉 ~ 2.3 over a large volume (100 h-1 Mpc)3.
We present a photometric and spectroscopic study of galaxies at 0.5
$\lt$
${z}$
$\lt$
1 as a function of the environment based on data from the zCOSMOS survey. There is a fair amount of evidence that ...galaxy properties depend on the mass of groups and clusters, in the sense that quiescent galaxies prefer more massive systems. We base our analysis on a mass-selected environment using X-ray groups of galaxies, and define the group membership using a large number of spectroscopic redshifts from zCOSMOS. We show that the fraction of red galaxies is higher in groups than in the field at all redshifts probed in our study. Interestingly, the fraction of O II emitters on the red sequence increases at higher redshifts in groups, while the fraction does not strongly evolve in the field. This is due to increased dusty star-formation activities and/or increased activities of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in high-redshift groups. We investigate these possibilities using the 30-band photometry and X-ray data. We find that the stellar population of the red O II emitters in groups is old, and there is no clear hint of dusty star-formation activities in those galaxies. The observed increase of red O II emitters in groups is likely due to increased AGN activities. However, since our overall statistics are poor, any firm conclusions need to be drawn from a larger statistical sample of
${z}$
$\sim$
1 groups.
The XXL Survey Farahi, Arya; Guglielmo, Valentina; Evrard, August E. ...
Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin),
12/2018, Volume:
620
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Context.
An X-ray survey with the
XMM-Newton
telescope, XMM-XXL, has identified hundreds of galaxy groups and clusters in two 25 deg
2
fields. Combining spectroscopic and X-ray observations in one ...field, we determine how the kinetic energy of galaxies scales with hot gas temperature and also, by imposing prior constraints on the relative energies of galaxies and dark matter, infer a power-law scaling of total mass with temperature.
Aims.
Our goals are: i) to determine parameters of the scaling between galaxy velocity dispersion and X-ray temperature,
T
300 kpc
, for the halos hosting XXL-selected clusters, and; ii) to infer the log-mean scaling of total halo mass with temperature, ⟨ln
M
200
|
T
300 kpc
,
z
⟩.
Methods.
We applied an ensemble velocity likelihood to a sample of >1500 spectroscopic redshifts within 132 spectroscopically confirmed clusters with redshifts
z
< 0.6 to model, ⟨ln
σ
gal
|
T
300 kpc
,
z
⟩, where
σ
gal
is the velocity dispersion of XXL cluster member galaxies and
T
300 kpc
is a 300 kpc aperture temperature. To infer total halo mass we used a precise virial relation for massive halos calibrated by
N
-body simulations along with a single degree of freedom summarising galaxy velocity bias with respect to dark matter.
Results.
For the XXL-N cluster sample, we find σ
gal
∝ T
300 kpc
0.63±0.05
, a slope significantly steeper than the self-similar expectation of 0.5. Assuming scale-independent galaxy velocity bias, we infer a mean logarithmic mass at a given X-ray temperature and redshift,
〈ln(
E
(
z
)
M
200
/10
14
M
⊙
)|T
300
kpc,
z
〉 = π
T
+ α
T
ln (
T
300
kpc/
T
p
) +
β
T
ln (
E
(
z
)/
E
(
z
p
)) using pivot values
kT
p
= 2.2 keV and
z
p
= 0.25, with normalization
π
T
= 0.45 ± 0.24 and slope
α
T
= 1.89 ± 0.15. We obtain only weak constraints on redshift evolution,
β
T
= −1.29 ± 1.14.
Conclusions.
The ratio of specific energies in hot gas and galaxies is scale dependent. Ensemble spectroscopic analysis is a viable method to infer mean scaling relations, particularly for the numerous low mass systems with small numbers of spectroscopic members per system. Galaxy velocity bias is the dominant systematic uncertainty in dynamical mass estimates.
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