H-ATLAS/GAMA and HeViCS - Dusty Early-Type Galaxies in Different Environments

Abstract

The Herschel Space Observatory has had a tremendous impact on the study of extragalactic dust. Specifically, early-type galaxies (ETG) have been the focus of several studies. In this paper we combine results from two Herschel studies - a Virgo cluster study HeViCS and a broader, low-redshift H-ATLAS/GAMA study - and contrast the dust and associated properties for similar mass galaxies. This comparison is motivated by differences in results exhibited between multiple Herschel studies of early-type galaxies. A comparison between consistent modified blackbody derived dust mass is carried out, revealing strong differences between the two samples in both dust mass and dust-to-stellar mass ratio. In particular, the HeViCS sample lacks massive ETG with as high a specific dust content as found in H-ATLAS. This is most likely connected with the difference in environment for the two samples. We calculate nearest neighbour environment densities in a consistent way, showing that H-ATLAS ETG occupy sparser regions of the local Universe, whereas HeViCS ETG occupy dense regions. This is also true for ETG that are not Herschel-detected but are in the Virgo and GAMA parent samples. Spectral energy distributions are fit to the panchromatic data. From these we find that in H-ATLAS the specific star formation rate anticorrelates with stellar mass and reaches values as high as in our Galaxy. On the other hand HeViCS ETG appear to have little star formation. Based on the trends found here, H-ATLAS ETG are thought to have more extended star formation histories and a younger stellar population than HeViCS ETG.

23 pages, 16 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (15)

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• DustPedia - A Definitive Study of Cosmic Dust in the Local Universe
• The MASSIVE survey - XI. What drives the molecular gas properties of early-type galaxies
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• GAMA/H-ATLAS: The Local Dust Mass Function and Cosmic Density as a Function of Galaxy Type - A Benchmark for Models of Galaxy Evolution
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• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: Kinematics of Dusty Early-Type Galaxies
• The nature of the UV halo around the spiral galaxy NGC 3628
• ALMA observations of massive molecular gas reservoirs in dusty early-type galaxies
• The Fate of the Interstellar Medium in Early-type Galaxies. II. Observational Evidence for Morphological Quenching
• The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. XIX. Physical properties of low luminosity FIR sources at $z<$ 0.5