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-meter MMT to carry out a redshift survey of red ($r-i>0.2$, $g-r>0.8$, $r<21.3$) galaxies in the COSMOS field to measure the environments of massive compact quiescent galaxies at intermediate redshift. The $>90\%$ complete magnitude limited survey includes redshifts for 1766 red galaxies with $r<20.8$ 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. Non-compact 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.

Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal; 13 pages, 10 figures

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