English

The CAVITY project. The spatially resolved SFR of galaxies in voids

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2026-05-20 v1

Abstract

The mass in the Universe is distributed non-uniformly, originating the Large Scale Structure (LSS), characterised by clusters, filaments, walls and voids. Galaxies in voids are bluer, later type, less massive, and have slower evolution than galaxies in denser environments. The effect of the void environment on properties such as star formation rate (SFR) is still under discussion. We tackle this by estimating spatially-resolved SFR from extinction-corrected Halpha luminosities of 220 void galaxies from the CAVITY survey. These observations consist of optical integral field unit data cubes from the PMAS/PPaK spectrograph at Calar Alto Observatory. We measure the continuum-subtracted emission lines to obtain maps of SFR, specific star formation rate (sSFR) and extinction. We assess global properties and radial profiles up to 2 half-light radii. We compare with galaxies in filaments and walls from the CALIFA survey using the same methodology, building a control sample matched in morphology and stellar mass. We find no significant differences in SFR and sSFR, although void galaxies tend to have larger SFR, especially for early spirals. This effect is present for Sa galaxies at all galactocentric distances, and in the outer parts of late-type spirals, evidencing slower transition to quiescence and less evolved discs. Void late-type galaxies have lower extinction. Using extinction normalised by stellar mass surface density as a proxy for gas mass fraction, we find it larger for void early spirals, especially in outer regions. This indicates the effect of the void environment on the transition from star forming to passive.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.28855,
  title  = {The CAVITY project. The spatially resolved SFR of galaxies in voids},
  author = {Ana M. Conrado and Rubén García-Benito and Rosa M. González Delgado and Bahar Bidaran and Hélène M. Courtois and Salvador Duarte Puertas and Daniel Espada and Andoni Jiménez and Ignacio del Moral-Castro and Isabel Pérez and Tomás Ruiz-Lara and Laura Sánchez-Menguiano and Gloria Torres-Ríos and Simon Verley and María Argudo-Fernández and Simon B. De Daniloff and Estrella Florido and Yllari K. González-Koda and Alejandra Z. Lugo-Aranda and Javier Román and Smitha Subramanian and Pedro Villalba-González and Manuel Alcázar-Laynez and Mónica Hernández-Sánchez and Mónica Rodríguez Martínez and Paulo Vásquez-Bustos and Martin Blazek},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.28855},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

18 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A