paper

The bimodal galaxy color distribution: dependence on luminosity and environment

arXiv:astro-ph/0406266 · doi:10.1086/426079

Abstract

We analyse the u-r color distribution of 24346 galaxies with Mr<=-18 and z<0.08, drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey first data release, as a function of luminosity and environment. The color distribution is well fit with two Gaussian distributions, which we use to divide the sample into a blue and red population. At fixed luminosity, the mean color of the blue (red) distribution is nearly independent of environment, with a weakly significant (~3sigma) detection of a trend for colors to become redder by 0.1-0.14 (0.03-0.06) mag with a factor ~100 increase in local density, as characterised by the surface density of galaxies within a +/-1000 km/s redshift slice. In contrast, at fixed luminosity the fraction of galaxies in the red distribution is a strong function of local density, increasing from ~10-30 per cent of the population in the lowest density environments, to ~70 per cent at the highest densities. The strength of this trend is similar for both the brightest (-23<Mr<-22) and faintest (-19<Mr<-18) galaxies in our sample. The fraction of red galaxies within the virialised regions of clusters shows no significant dependence on velocity dispersion. Even at the lowest densities explored, a substantial population of red galaxies exists, which might be fossil groups. We propose that most star-forming galaxies today evolve at a rate that is determined primarily by their intrinsic properties, and independent of their environment. Any environmentally triggered transformations from blue to red colors must either occur on a short timescale, or preferentially at high redshift, to preserve the simple Gaussian nature of the color distribution. The mechanism must be effective for both bright and faint galaxies.

ApJ Letters, in press. 5 pages and 3 inline figures,using emulateapj style. Fig 1 larger than in published version. Fit parameters available at http://star-www.dur.ac.uk/~balogh/SDSS/colourfits.html

Cited by in corpus (483)