English

Main sequence of star formation and colour bimodality considering galaxy environment

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2025-01-14 v2

Abstract

This study involves the use of friend-of-friend method on the volume limited samples constructed from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12 (SDSS DR12) to classify the galaxies into isolated and non-isolated environments hence to investigate the influence of the galaxy environment on the main sequence of star formation, and colour bimodality. We classified the galaxies into the luminous volume-limited sample with 22.5Mr20.5 -22.5\leq M_r \leq -20.5 (mag), and the faint volume-limited sample with 20.5Mr18.5-20.5 \leq M_r \leq -18.5 (mag). Using the WHAN diagnostic diagram we assignedthe samples into star-forming, strong AGN, weak AGN, and retired galaxies based on their environment (isolated and non-isolated). The friend-of-friend method was successful in producing consistent results regarding the stellar mass-SFR and stellar mass-colour known relations. Apart from that the decrease in the slope of the main sequence for star-forming galaxies by 0.040.04 dex and intercept by 0.390.39 dex for the luminous sample was observed while the faint sample a decrease of 0.080.08 dex in slope and 0.740.74 dex in intercept was observed between isolated and non-isolated galaxies. A significant difference on the number of galaxies between isolated and non-isolated galaxies within, above and below the main sequence by 7.47%7.47\%, 28.51%28.51\%, 14.59%14.59\% for the luminous sample while for the faint sample by 16.15%16.15\%, 32.60%32.60\%, 35.23%35.23\% on average, respectively are observed. A significant difference in the number of galaxies in the blue cloud, green valley, and red sequence by 10.30%10.30\%, 20.61%20.61\%, 5.74%5.74\% for luminous sample while for faint sample by 28.46%28.46\%, 41.36%41.36\%, 8.95%8.95\% on average, respectively was observed. The study concludes that the galaxy environment influences the shaping and positioning of galaxies along the star formation main sequence and colour bimodality.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2405.00481,
  title  = {Main sequence of star formation and colour bimodality considering galaxy environment},
  author = {Pius Privatus and Umananda Dev Goswami},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.00481},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

14 pages, 3 figures