The Environment of Massive Quiescent Compact Galaxies at 0.1 < z < 0.4 in the COSMOS Field
Abstract
We use Hectospec mounted on the 6.5 m MMT to carry out a redshift survey of red (r-i\gt 0.2, g-r\gt 0.8, r\lt 21.3) galaxies in the Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS) field to measure the environments of massive compact quiescent galaxies at intermediate redshift. The \gt 90% complete magnitude limited survey includes redshifts for 1766 red galaxies with r\lt 20.8 covering the central square degree of the field; 65% of the redshifts in this sample are new. We select a complete magnitude limited quiescent sample based on the rest-frame UVJ colors. When the density distribution is sampled on a scale of 2 Mpc, massive compact galaxies inhabit systematically denser regions than the parent quiescent galaxy population. Noncompact quiescent galaxies with the same stellar masses as their compact counterparts populate a similar distribution of environments. Thus the massive nature of quiescent compacts accounts for the environment dependence and appears fundamental to their history.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- December 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1088/0004-637X/815/2/104
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1508.03346
- Bibcode:
- 2015ApJ...815..104D
- Keywords:
-
- galaxies: evolution;
- galaxies: formation;
- galaxies: fundamental parameters;
- galaxies: statistics;
- galaxies: stellar content;
- galaxies: structure;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal