Insights into environmental quenching at $z\sim 1$: an enhancement of faint, low-mass passive galaxies in clusters

Abstract

Understanding the processes that transform star-forming galaxies into quiescent ones is key to unraveling the role of environment in galaxy evolution. We present measurements of the luminosity functions (LFs) and stellar mass functions (SMFs) of passive red-sequence galaxies in four galaxy clusters at $0.8<z<1.3$, selected using deep VLT observations complemented with data from the GCLASS and GOGREEN surveys. We find a significant enhancement in the abundance of faint/low-mass passive galaxies in both the LFs and SMFs of all four clusters compared to the field. This is further evidenced by a shallower low-mass slope in the composite passive cluster SMF, which yields a Schechter parameter $\alpha =-0.54_{-0.03}^{+0.03}$, compared to $\alpha =0.12_{-0.01}^{+0.01}$ for the field. Our findings indicate that quenching processes that act in clusters are enhanced compared to the field, suggesting that environmental quenching mechanisms may already be active by $z\sim 1$. To reproduce the observed passive cluster SMF, we estimate that $25\pm 5\%$ of the star-forming field population that falls into the cluster must have been quenched. Our results largely support traditional quenching models but highlight the need for deeper studies of larger cluster samples to better understand the role of environmental quenching in the distant Universe.

19 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (52)

• Mass and environment as drivers of galaxy evolution in SDSS and zCOSMOS and the origin of the Schechter function
• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling I: The relevance of uncertain aspects of stellar evolution and the IMF to the derived physical properties of galaxies
• EAZY: A Fast, Public Photometric Redshift Code
• 3D-HST WFC3-selected Photometric Catalogs in the Five CANDELS/3D-HST Fields: Photometry, Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Masses
• Detection of quiescent galaxies in a bicolor sequence from z=0-2
• UltraVISTA: a new ultra-deep near-infrared survey in COSMOS
• COSMOS2020: A panchromatic view of the Universe to $z\sim 10$ from two complementary catalogs
• The Importance of Satellite Quenching for the Build-Up of the Red Sequence of Present Day Galaxies
• What do we learn from IRAC observations of galaxies at 2 < z < 3.5?
• The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS): Subaru Observations of the HST COSMOS Field
• Ram Pressure Stripping in High-Density Environments
• COSMOS2020: The Galaxy Stellar Mass Function: the assembly and star formation cessation of galaxies at $0.2<z\le 7.5$
• Effect of local environment and stellar mass on galaxy quenching and morphology at $0.5<z<2.0$
• The GALEX Ultraviolet Virgo Cluster Survey (GUViCS). IV: The role of the cluster environment on galaxy evolution
• The Multiwavelength Survey by Yale-Chile (MUSYC): Deep Near-Infrared Imaging and the Selection of Distant Galaxies
• The Rest-Frame Optical Luminosity Function of Cluster Galaxies at z<0.8 and the Assembly of the Cluster Red Sequence
• Cosmic Web of Galaxies in the COSMOS Field: Public Catalog and Different Quenching for Centrals and Satellites
• The Formation of Massive Cluster Galaxies
• Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Protocluster at $z=3.37$ with a High Fraction of Quiescent Galaxies
• Stellar mass function of cluster galaxies at z $\sim$ 1.5: evidence for reduced quenching efficiency at high redshift
• The Observations of Redshift Evolution in Large Scale Environments (ORELSE) Survey : I. The Survey Design and First Results on Cl 0023+0423 at z = 0.84 and RX J1821.6+6827 at z = 0.82
• The GOGREEN Survey: A deep stellar mass function of cluster galaxies at 1.0<z<1.4 and the complex nature of satellite quenching
• Euclid preparation: XVIII. Cosmic Dawn Survey. Spitzer observations of the Euclid deep fields and calibration fields
• The evolution of the quenching of star formation in cluster galaxies since z $\sim$ 1
• The Build-up of the Red Sequence in the galaxy cluster MS1054-0321 at z=0.831
• Gemini Observations of Galaxies in Rich Early Environments (GOGREEN) I: Survey Description
• CLASH-VLT: The stellar mass function and stellar mass density profile of the z=0.44 cluster of galaxies MACS J1206.2-0847
• HST/WFC3 grism observations of $z\sim 1$ clusters: The cluster vs. field stellar mass-size relation and evidence for size growth of quiescent galaxies from minor mergers
• Glimpsing the Imprint of Local Environment on the Galaxy Stellar Mass Function
• The GOGREEN survey: Post-infall environmental quenching fails to predict the observed age difference between quiescent field and cluster galaxies at z>1
• COSMOS2020: Discovery of a protocluster of massive quiescent galaxies at $z=2.77$
• The GOGREEN and GCLASS Surveys: First Data Release
• The Roles of Mass and Environment in the Quenching of Galaxies. II
• Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Coma Cluster Progenitor at z ~ 2.2
• The relevance of ram pressure stripping for the evolution of blue cluster galaxies as seen at optical wavelengths
• The Ages of Passive Galaxies in a z=1.62 Protocluster
• The Physics of the Accelerating Universe Camera
• The GOGREEN survey: Transition Galaxies and The Evolution of Environmental Quenching
• Observing ram pressure at work in intermediate redshift clusters with MUSE: the case of Abell 2744and Abell 370
• Satellite quenching was not important for z$\sim$1 clusters: most quenching occurred during infall
• Mass segregation trends in SDSS galaxy groups
• HST/WFC3 grism observations of $z\sim 1$ clusters: Evidence for rapid outside-in environmental quenching from spatially resolved H$\alpha$ maps
• Elentári: A $z\sim 3.3$ Proto-Supercluster in COSMOS
• The GOGREEN survey: the internal dynamics of clusters of galaxies at redshift 0.9-1.4
• GOGREEN: a critical assessment of environmental trends in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations at z ~ 1
• A Machine Learning Approach to Measuring the Quenched Fraction of Low-Mass Satellites Beyond the Local Group
• When the Well Runs Dry: Modeling Environmental Quenching of High-mass Satellites in Massive Clusters at \boldmath$z\gtrsim 1$
• A flexible method for estimating luminosity functions via Kernel Density Estimation
• Uncovering Mass Segregation with Galaxy Analogues in Dark Matter Simulations
• YZiCS: On the Mass Segregation of Galaxies in Clusters
• An environment-dependent halo mass function as a driver for the early quenching of $z\ge 1.5$ cluster galaxies
• JWST PRIMER: strong evidence for the environmental quenching of low-mass galaxies out to $\text{z}\simeq 2$

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Quantifying the Impact of Incompleteness on Identifying and Interpreting Galaxy Protocluster Populations with the TNG-Cluster Simulation
• Star formation quenching precedes morphological transformation in COSMOS-WEB's richest galaxy groups