On The Effect of Environment on Line Emission from the Circumgalactic Medium

Abstract

We measure differences in the emission line flux from the circumgalactic medium, CGM, of galaxies in different environments. Such differences could be a critical clue in explaining a range of galaxy properties that depend on environment. Using large samples of stacked archival spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we find that the H$\alpha$ + [N {\small II}] emission line flux from the CGM within 50 kpc of $\sim$ L${}^{\ast }$ galaxies is lower both for galaxies that lie within a projected distance of $\sim$ 500 kpc from a massive ($M_{\ast }>10^{11}{M}_{\odot }$) galaxy and for galaxies in richer/denser environments. The environmental differences are statistically significant even after we control for galaxy mass and morphology. We interpret these observations as a direct signature of environmentally-caused strangulation. We present a simple, heuristic model for the effect of a massive parent galaxy. In this model, the CGM cool gas fraction within 50 kpc is significantly decreased for galaxies that lie within 700 kpc of a massive galaxy, with about 80\% of the cool gas removed even when the galaxy is at a distance of 500 kpc from its massive parent. However, we discuss alternative physical causes for the observed behavior and discuss ways forward in addressing open questions.

arXiv comment11 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (48)

• emcee: The MCMC Hammer
• The Host Galaxies of AGN
• The physical properties of star forming galaxies in the low redshift universe
• The Eleventh and Twelfth Data Releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final Data from SDSS-III
• Stellar Masses and Star Formation Histories for 10^5 Galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Galaxy Harassment and the Evolution of Clusters of Galaxies
• The Rockstar Phase-Space Temporal Halo Finder and the Velocity Offsets of Cluster Cores
• The Environmental Dependence of the Relations between Stellar Mass, Structure, Star Formation and Nuclear Activity in Galaxies
• UniverseMachine: The Correlation between Galaxy Growth and Dark Matter Halo Assembly from z=0-10
• The ages and metallicities of galaxies in the local universe
• The Circumgalactic Medium
• MultiDark simulations: the story of dark matter halo concentrations and density profiles
• The Luminosity Function of Galaxies in SDSS Commissioning Data
• A Catalog of Bulge+Disk Decompositions and Updated Photometry for 1.12 Million Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Gravitationally Consistent Halo Catalogs and Merger Trees for Precision Cosmology
• Milky Way Cepheid Standards for Measuring Cosmic Distances and Application to Gaia DR2: Implications for the Hubble Constant
• The COS-Halos Survey: Physical Conditions and Baryonic Mass in the Low-Redshift Circumgalactic Medium
• Galaxy evolution in groups and clusters: star formation rates, red sequence fractions, and the persistent bimodality
• The Evolution of Galaxy Structure over Cosmic Time
• HI in Local Group Dwarf Galaxies and Stripping by the Galactic Halo
• The Search for the Missing Baryons at Low Redshift
• The splashback radius as a physical halo boundary and the growth of halo mass
• Probing the IGM/Galaxy Connection V: On the Origin of Lya and OVI Absorption at z<0.2
• An Empirical Characterization of Extended Cool Gas Around Galaxies Using MgII Absorption Features
• The COS-Halos Survey: Metallicities in the Low-Redshift Circumgalactic Medium
• The COS-Dwarfs Survey: The Carbon Reservoir Around sub-L* Galaxies
• Halo and Subhalo Demographics with Planck Cosmological Parameters: Bolshoi-Planck and MultiDark-Planck Simulations
• The SDSS DR6 Luminosity Functions of Galaxies
• Characterizing Circumgalactic Gas around Massive Ellipticals at z~0.4 - II. Physical Properties and Elemental Abundances
• On the possible environmental effect in distributing heavy elements beyond individual gaseous halos
• Discovery of an Enormous Ly$\alpha$ nebula in a massive galaxy overdensity at $z=2.3$
• Mergers and Mass Accretion for Infalling Halos Both End Well Outside Cluster Virial Radii
• Evidence for a Massive, Extended Circumgalactic Medium Around the Andromeda Galaxy
• BUDHIES III: The fate of HI and the quenching of galaxies in evolving environments
• A Deep Search For Faint Galaxies Associated With Very Low-redshift C IV Absorbers: III. The Mass- and Environment-dependent Circumgalactic Medium
• The Large-scale Distribution of Cool Gas around Luminous Red Galaxies
• Multiphase Gas In Galaxy Halos: The OVI Lyman-limit System toward J1009+0713
• The Last Eight-Billion Years of Intergalactic CIV Evolution
• The Clustering of MgII Absorption Systems at z=0.5 and Detection of Cold Gas in Massive Halos
• Characterizing Circumgalactic Gas around Massive Ellipticals at z ~ 0.4 I. Initial Results
• The HI Content of Galaxies in Groups and Clusters as Measured by ALFALFA
• Calcium H & K Induced by Galaxy Halos
• On the CGM Fundamental Plane: The Halo Mass Dependency of Circumgalactic HI
• Hydrogen Emission from the Ionized Gaseous Halos of Low Redshift Galaxies
• Discovery of a transparent sightline at ρ < 20 kpc from an interacting pair of galaxies
• Emission from the Ionized Gaseous Halos of Low Redshift Galaxies and Their Neighbors
• Emission line ratios for the Circumgalactic Medium and the "Bimodal" Nature of Galaxies
• On the influence of environment on star forming galaxies

Cited by in corpus (10)

• The GOGREEN survey: Post-infall environmental quenching fails to predict the observed age difference between quiescent field and cluster galaxies at z>1
• The hot circumgalactic media of massive cluster satellites in the TNG-Cluster simulation: existence and detectability
• The QuaStar Survey: Detecting Hidden Low-Velocity Gas in the Milky Way's Circumgalactic Medium
• When the Well Runs Dry: Modeling Environmental Quenching of High-mass Satellites in Massive Clusters at \boldmath$z\gtrsim 1$
• The Anisotropic Circumgalactic Medium of Massive Early-Type Galaxies
• SEEDisCS I. Molecular gas in galaxy clusters and their large scale structure: the case of CL1411.1$-$1148 at $z\sim 0.5$
• Absorption-based Circumgalactic Medium Line Emission Estimates
• An Empirical Determination of the Dependence of the Circumgalactic Mass Cooling Rate and Feedback Mass Loading Factor on Galactic Stellar Mass
• Observing the Effects of Galaxy Interactions on the Circumgalactic Medium
• Misty, patchy, and turbulent: constraining the cool circumgalactic medium with mCC