The role of environment in the morphological transformation of galaxies in 9 intermediate redshift clusters

Abstract

[abridged] We analyze a sample of 9 massive clusters at 0.4<z<0.6 observed with MegaCam in 4 photometric bands (g,r,i,z) from the core to a radius of 5 Mpc (~4000 galaxies). Galaxy cluster candidates are selected using photometric redshifts computed with HyperZ. Morphologies are estimated with galSVM in two broad morphological types (early-type and late-type). We examine the morphological composition of the red-sequence and the blue-cloud and study the relations between galaxies and their environment through the morphology-density relations (T-Sigma) and the morphology-radius relation (T-R) in a mass limited sample (log(M/Msol)>9.5). We find that the red sequence is already in place at z~0.5 and it is mainly composed of very massive (log(M/Msol)>11.3) early-type galaxies. These massive galaxies seem to be already formed when they enter the cluster, probably in infalling groups, since the fraction remains constant with the cluster radius. Their presence in the cluster center could be explained by a segregation effect reflecting an early assembly history. Any evolution that takes place in the galaxy cluster population occurs therefore at lower masses (10.3<log(M/Msol)<11.3). For these galaxies, the evolution, is mainly driven by galaxy-galaxy interactions in the outskirts as revealed by the T-Sigma relation. Finally, the majority of less massive galaxies (9.5<log(M/Msol)<10.3) are late-type galaxies at all locations, suggesting that they have not started the morphological transformation yet even if this low mass bin might be affected by incompleteness.

A&A in press

References in corpus (10)

• Galaxy Zoo: the dependence of morphology and colour on environment
• Natural Downsizing in Hierarchical Galaxy Formation
• The build-up of the colour-magnitude relation in galaxy clusters since z~0.8
• A Wide-field Survey of Two Z~0.5 Galaxy Clusters: Identifying the Physical Processes Responsible for the Observed Transformation of Spirals into S0s
• Evolution of the Color-Magnitude Relation in Galaxy Clusters at z ~1 from the ACS Intermediate Redshift Cluster Survey
• A robust morphological classification of high-redshift galaxies using support vector machines on seeing limited images. I Method description
• The Dependence of the Mass Assembly History of Cold Dark Matter Halos on Environment
• Mass-Selection and the Evolution of the Morphology-Density Relation from z=0.8 to z=0
• The Red Sequence of High-Redshift Clusters: a Comparison with Cosmological Galaxy Formation Models
• A robust morphological classification of high-redshift galaxies using support vector machines on seeing limited images. II. Quantifying morphological k-correction in the COSMOS field at 1<z<2: Ks band vs. I band

Cited by in corpus (22)

• Revisiting the Hubble sequence in the SDSS DR7 spectroscopic sample: a publicly available bayesian automated classification
• Galaxy stellar mass functions of different morphological types in clusters, and their evolution between z=0.8 and z=0
• Measuring the escape velocity and mass profiles of galaxy clusters beyond their virial radius
• Larger sizes of massive quiescent early-type galaxies in clusters than in the field at 0.8 < z < 1.5
• Multimodality in galaxy clusters from SDSS DR8: substructure and velocity distribution
• Identification of members in the central and outer regions of galaxy clusters
• Detailed Cluster Mass and Light profiles of A1703, A370 and RXJ1347-11 from Deep Subaru Imaging
• The Accelerated Build-up of the Red Sequence in High Redshift Galaxy Clusters
• Red sequence determination of the redshift of the cluster of galaxies JKCS041: z~2.2
• The Sloan Great Wall. Rich clusters
• On the buildup of massive early-type galaxies at z<~1. I- Reconciling their hierarchical assembly with mass-downsizing
• The impact from survey depth and resolution on the morphological classification of galaxies
• From the core to the outskirts: structure analysis of three massive galaxy clusters
• Relationship between Hubble type and spectroscopic class in local galaxies
• SARCS strong lensing galaxy groups: I - optical, weak lensing, and scaling laws
• Multi-wavelength landscape of the young galaxy cluster RXJ1257.2+4738 at z=0.866. II. Morphological properties
• Red sequence modal colour gradients across intermediate X-ray luminosity galaxy clusters
• Unravelling the orbits of cluster galaxy populations according to their dominant gas ionization source
• Quantifying galactic morphological transformations in the cluster environment
• Emergence of the Galaxy Morphology-Star Formation Activity-Clustercentric Radius Relations in Galaxy Clusters
• Environmental Sculpting of Galaxy Structure at Fixed Stellar Mass: A Multi-Scale Analysis Across Cosmic Time using 3 Million HSC Galaxies
• The origin of ionized gas in retired galaxies: dynamical clues