Tidal Interactions and Mergers in Intermediate Redshift EDisCS Clusters

Abstract

We study the fraction of tidal interactions and mergers with well identified observability timescales ($f_{\mathrm{TIM}}$) in group, cluster, and accompanying field galaxies and its dependence on redshift ($z$), cluster velocity dispersion ($\sigma$) and environment analyzing HST-ACS images and catalogs from the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS). Our sample consists of 11 clusters, 7 groups, and accompanying field galaxies at $0.4\le z\le 0.8$. We derive $f_{\mathrm{TIM}}$ using both a visual classification of galaxy morphologies and an automated method, the $G-M_{20}$ method. We calibrate this method using the visual classifications that were performed on a subset of our sample. We find marginal evidence for a trend between $f_{\mathrm{TIM}}$ and $z$, in that higher $z$ values correspond to higher $f_{\mathrm{TIM}}$. However, we also cannot rule out the null hypothesis of no correlation at higher than 68% confidence. No trend is present between $f_{\mathrm{TIM}}$ and $\sigma$. We find that $f_{\mathrm{TIM}}$ shows suggestive peaks in groups, and tentatively in clusters at $R>0.5\times R_{200}$, implying that $f_{\mathrm{TIM}}$ gets boosted in these intermediate density environments. However, our analysis of the local densities of our cluster sample does not reveal a trend between $f_{\mathrm{TIM}}$ and density, except for a potential enhancement at the very highest densities. We also perform an analysis of projected radius-velocity phase space for our cluster members. Our results reveal that tidal interactions and mergers (TIM), and undisturbed galaxies only have a 6% probability of having been drawn from the same parent population in their velocity distribution and 37% in radii, in agreement with the modest differences obtained in $f_{\mathrm{TIM}}$ at the clusters.

16 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (61)

• The Environmental Dependence of the Relations between Stellar Mass, Structure, Star Formation and Nuclear Activity in Galaxies
• Evolution since z = 0.5 of the Morphology-Density relation for Clusters of Galaxies
• The Relationship Between Stellar Light Distributions of Galaxies and their Formation Histories
• Morphological Transformation from Galaxy Harassment
• A New Non-Parametric Approach to Galaxy Morphological Classification
• Galaxy Star-Formation as a Function of Environment in the Early Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: The environmental dependence of galaxy star formation rates near clusters
• Gone with the wind: the origin of S0 galaxies in clusters
• PRIMUS: Constraints on Star Formation Quenching and Galaxy Merging, and the Evolution of the Stellar Mass Function From z=0-1
• A Merger-Driven Scenario for Cosmological Disk Galaxy Formation
• Galaxy morphology to I=25 mag in the Hubble Deep Field
• Physical properties and environments of nearby galaxies
• Galaxy ecology: groups and low-density environments in the SDSS and 2dFGRS
• The Properties of Poor Groups of Galaxies: I. Spectroscopic Survey and Results
• The Evolution of Galaxy Mergers and Morphology at z<1.2 in the Extended Groth Strip
• Formation of a spiral galaxy in a major merger
• A New Approach to Galaxy Morphology: I. Analysis of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Early Data Release
• The dependence on environment of the color-magnitude relation of galaxies
• Statistical Properties of Collisionless Equal- and Unequal-Mass Merger Remnants of Disk Galaxies
• Galaxy Merger Morphologies and Time-Scales from Simulations of Equal-Mass Gas-Rich Disc Mergers
• The Morphology - Density Relation in z ~ 1 Clusters
• The Environment of ``E+A'' Galaxies
• Passive spiral formation from halo gas starvation: Gradual transformation into S0s
• Feedback in simulations of disc-galaxy major mergers
• The evolution of the galactic morphological types in clusters
• The evolution of the star formation activity in galaxies and its dependence on environment
• Strangulation in Galaxy Groups
• Pre-Processing of Galaxies before Entering a Cluster
• The Rise and Fall of Passive Disk Galaxies: Morphological Evolution Along the Red Sequence Revealed by COSMOS
• The Effect of Gas Fraction on the Morphology and Time-scales of Disc Galaxy Mergers
• The zCOSMOS Redshift Survey: the role of environment and stellar mass in shaping the rise of the morphology-density relation from z~1
• Witnessing galaxy preprocessing in the local Universe: the case of a star-bursting group falling into Abell 1367
• Morphological Composition of z~0.4 groups: The site of S0 formation
• The relation between star formation, morphology and local density in high redshift clusters and groups
• The environments of starburst and post-starburst galaxies at z=0.4-0.8
• Comparing the relation between star formation and galaxy mass in different environments
• Measuring Galaxy Environments with Deep Redshift Surveys
• The Morphological Content of Ten EDisCS Clusters at 0.5 < z < 0.8
• The DEEP2 galaxy redshift survey: the evolution of the blue fraction in groups and the field
• The velocity modulation of galaxy properties in and near clusters: quantifying the decrease in star formation in backsplash galaxies
• EDisCS -- the ESO Distant Cluster Survey -- Sample Definition and Optical Photometry
• Resolving the Discrepancy of Galaxy Merger Fraction Measurements at z ~ 0 - 3
• The IMACS Cluster Building Survey: II. Spectral Evolution of Galaxies in the Epoch of Cluster Assembly
• Pre-Processing and Post-Processing in Group-Cluster Mergers
• The Las Campanas Distant Cluster Survey - The Catalog
• The Rest-Frame Optical Luminosity Function of Cluster Galaxies at z<0.8 and the Assembly of the Cluster Red Sequence
• Spectroscopy of clusters in the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS)
• Can Early Type Galaxies Evolve from Fading the Disks of Late Types?
• New Image Statistics for Detecting Disturbed Galaxy Morphologies at High Redshift
• A K-band Selected Photometric Redshift Catalog in the HDF-S: Sampling the Rest-Frame V-Band to z=3
• Spectroscopy of clusters in the ESO distant cluster survey (EDisCS).II. Redshifts, velocity dispersions, and substructure for clusters in the last 15 fields
• The Origin of S0s in Clusters: evidence from the bulge and disc star formation histories
• The Environmental Dependence of the Evolving S0 Fraction
• Photometric redshifts and cluster tomography in the ESO Distant Cluster Survey
• The Environmental Dependence of the Incidence of Galactic Tidal Features
• A New Automatic Method to Identify Galaxy Mergers I. Description and Application to the STAGES Survey
• Firedec: a two-channel finite-resolution image deconvolution algorithm
• Determining the Halo Mass Scale where Galaxies Lose Their Gas
• Disc colours in field and cluster spiral galaxies at 0.5 < z < 0.8
• The IMACS Cluster Building Survey: V. Further Evidence for Starburst Recycling from Quantitative Galaxy Morphologies
• The effect of the environment on the structure, morphology and star-formation history of intermediate-redshift galaxies

Cited by in corpus (10)

• The time delay between star formation quenching and morphological transformation of galaxies in clusters: a phase-space view of EDisCS
• Quantifying the role of ram pressure stripping of galaxies within galaxy groups
• What boost galaxy mergers in two massive galaxy protoclusters at z = 2.24
• Effects of galaxy environment on merger fraction
• Significant Molecular Gas Deficiencies in Star-forming Cluster Galaxies at $z\sim 1.4$
• Do galaxy mergers prefer under-dense environments?
• The redshift evolution of the S0 fraction for $z<1$ in COSMOS
• The evolution of galaxy scaling relations in clusters at 0.5<z<1.5
• Galaxy Pairs in Cosmic Voids
• The Journey to Dominance: How BCGs Evolve Differently from Other Massive Galaxies