VIS3COS: III. environmental effects on the star formation histories of galaxies at z~0.8 seen in [OII], H$\delta$, and Dn4000

Abstract

[ABRIDGED] We present spectroscopic observations of 466 galaxies in and around a superstructure at $z\sim 0.84$ targeted by the VIMOS Spectroscopic Survey of a Supercluster in the COSMOS field (VIS${}^3$COS). We use [OII]$\lambda$3727, H$\delta$, and $D_{n}4000$ to trace the recent, mid-, and long-term star formation histories and investigate how stellar mass and the local environment impacts those. By studying trends both in individual and composite galaxy spectra, we find that both stellar mass and environment play a role in the observed galactic properties. We find that the median [OII] equivalent width (|EW${}_{[\mathrm{OII}]}|$) decreases from $27\pm 2$ Å to $2.0_{-0.4}^{+0.5}$ Å and $D_{n}4000$ increases from $1.09\pm 0.01$ to $1.56\pm 0.03$ with increasing stellar mass (from $\sim 10^{9.25}$ to $\sim 10^{11.35}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$). Concerning the dependence on the environment, we find that at fixed stellar mass |EW${}_{[\mathrm{OII}]}|$ is tentatively lower in higher density environments. Regarding $D_{n}4000$, we find that the increase with stellar mass is sharper in denser environments, hinting that such environments may accelerate galaxy evolution. Moreover, we find larger $D_{n}4000$ values in denser environments at fixed stellar mass, suggesting that galaxies are on average older and/or more metal-rich in such dense environments. This set of tracers depicts a scenario where the most massive galaxies have, on average, the lowest sSFRs and the oldest stellar populations (age $\gtrsim 1$ Gyr, showing a mass-downsizing effect). We also hypothesize that the observed increase in star formation (higher EW${}_{[\mathrm{OII}]|}$, higher sSFR) at intermediate densities may lead to quenching since we find the quenched fraction to increase sharply from the filament to cluster-like regions at similar stellar masses.

20 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

References in corpus (41)

• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• Cosmic Star Formation History
• Mass and environment as drivers of galaxy evolution in SDSS and zCOSMOS and the origin of the Schechter function
• UV Star Formation Rates in the Local Universe
• A simple model to interpret the ultraviolet, optical and infrared emission from galaxies
• COSMOS Photometric Redshifts with 30-bands for 2-deg2
• A Semi-Analytic Model for the Co-evolution of Galaxies, Black Holes, and Active Galactic Nuclei
• Galaxy Pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey I: Star Formation, AGN Fraction, and the Luminosity/Mass-Metallicity Relation
• The XMM-Newton wide-field survey in the COSMOS field: VI. Statistical properties of clusters of galaxies
• LoCuSS: The slow quenching of star formation in cluster galaxies and the need for pre-processing
• BUDHIES II: A phase-space view of HI gas stripping and star-formation quenching in cluster galaxies
• Bursting and Quenching in Massive Galaxies without Major Mergers or AGNs
• GOODS-HERSCHEL: star formation, dust attenuation and the FIR-radio correlation on the Main Sequence of star-forming galaxies up to z~4
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey: The build-up of the colour-density relation
• Ongoing Assembly of Massive Galaxies by Major Merging in Large Groups and Clusters from the SDSS
• Effect of local environment and stellar mass on galaxy quenching and morphology at $0.5<z<2.0$
• The environments of starburst and post-starburst galaxies at z=0.4-0.8
• The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS): Galaxy segregation inside filaments at $z\simeq 0.7$
• The Role of Environment in the Mass-Metallicity Relation
• A Comparative Study of Density Field Estimation for Galaxies: New Insights into the Evolution of Galaxies with Environment in COSMOS out to z~3
• Cosmic Web and Star Formation Activity in Galaxies at z~1
• Cosmic Web of Galaxies in the COSMOS Field: Public Catalog and Different Quenching for Centrals and Satellites
• SDSS IV MaNGA - The spatially resolved transition from star formation to quiescence
• The quenching of the star formation activity in cluster galaxies
• The environmental dependence of gas accretion onto galaxies: quenching satellites through starvation
• Star formation in shocked cluster spirals and their tails
• The rise and fall of star-formation in $\mathbf{z}\sim 0.2$ merging galaxy clusters
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey: Tracing the galaxy stellar mass assembly history over the last 8Gyr
• MC${}^2$: Boosted AGN and star-formation activity in CIZA J2242.8+5301, a massive post-merger cluster at z=0.19
• Mapping dusty star formation in and around a cluster at z=0.81 by wide-field imaging with AKARI
• The Dissipative Merger Progenitors of Elliptical Galaxies
• Enhanced mergers of galaxies in low-redshift clusters
• A large H$\alpha$ survey of star formation in relaxed and merging galaxy cluster environments at $z\sim 0.15-0.3$
• Conditional Quenching: A detailed look at the SFR-Density Relation at z ~ 0.9 from ORELSE
• Environmental Effects on the Star Formation Activity in Galaxies at z=1.2 in the COSMOS Field
• The submillimetre view of massive clusters at z~0.8-1.6
• Star Formation and Supercluster Environment of 107 Nearby Galaxy Clusters
• Suppressed Star Formation by a Merging Cluster System
• Quenching or Bursting: Star Formation Acceleration--A New Methodology for Tracing Galaxy Evolution
• Star Formation In The Cluster Merger DLSCL J0916.2+2953
• Physical and Morphological Properties of [O II] Emitting Galaxies in the HETDEX Pilot Survey

Cited by in corpus (11)

• The miniJPAS survey: a preview of the Universe in 56 colours
• The GOGREEN survey: Post-infall environmental quenching fails to predict the observed age difference between quiescent field and cluster galaxies at z>1
• Identification and Characterization of a Large Sample of Distant Active Dwarf Galaxies in XMM-SERVS
• Death at watersheds: galaxy quenching in low-density environments
• The LEGA-C of nature and nurture in stellar populations of galaxies at z~0.6-1.0: D4000 and H-delta reveal different assembly histories for quiescent galaxies in different environments
• COSMOS Brightest Group Galaxies -- III: Evolution of stellar ages
• The OTELO survey: Faint end of the luminosity function of [OII] emitters at <z>= 1.43
• King Ghidorah Supercluster: Mapping the light and dark matter in a new supercluster at z=0.55 using the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam
• Clash of Titans: a MUSE dynamical study of the extreme cluster merger SPT-CL J0307-6225
• Efficient detection of emission line galaxies in the Cl0016+1609 and MACSJ1621.4+3810 supercluster filaments using SITELLE
• Lack of influence of the environment in the earliest stages of massive galaxy formation