The Dependence of Galaxy Colors on Luminosity and Environment at z~0.4

Abstract

We analyse the B-R_c colors of galaxies as functions of luminosity and local galaxy density using a large photometric redshift catalog based on the Red-Sequence Cluster Survey. We select two samples of galaxies with a magnitude limit of M_Rc<-18.5 and redshift ranges of 0.2<z< 0.4 and 0.4<z<0.6 containing \~10^5 galaxies each. We model the color distributions of subsamples of galaxies and derive the red galaxy fraction and peak colors of red and blue galaxies as functions of galaxy luminosity and environment. The evolution of these relationships over the redshift range of z~0.5 to z~0.05 is analysed in combination with published results from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find that there is a strong evolution in the restframe peak color of bright blue galaxies in that they become redder with decreasing redshift, while the colors of faint blue galaxies remain approximately constant. This effect supports the ``downsizing'' scenario of star formation in galaxies. While the general dependence of the galaxy color distributions on the environment is small, we find that the change of red galaxy fraction with epoch is a function of the local galaxy density, suggesting that the downsizing effect may operate with different timescales in regions of different galaxy densities.

arXiv commentaccepted, ApJL vol. 269, in press

References in corpus (13)

• New Insight on Galaxy Formation and Evolution from Keck Spectroscopy of the Hawaii Deep Fields
• Quantifying the bimodal color-magnitude distribution of galaxies
• Evolution since z = 0.5 of the Morphology-Density relation for Clusters of Galaxies
• Galaxy Star-Formation as a Function of Environment in the Early Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The bimodal galaxy color distribution: dependence on luminosity and environment
• The Complete Star Formation History of the Universe
• The Red-Sequence Cluster Survey I: The Survey and Cluster Catalogs for Patches RCS0926+37 and RCS1327+29
• The overdensities of galaxy environments as a function of luminosity and color
• The CNOC2 Field Galaxy Luminosity Function I: A Description of Luminosity Function Evolution
• Evolution Since z=1 of the Morphology-density Relation of Galaxies
• Down-Sizing in Galaxy Formation at z~1 in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Survey (SXDS)
• The Color-Magnitude Effect in Early-Type Cluster Galaxies
• A Photometric Redshift Galaxy Catalog from the Red-Sequence Cluster Survey

Cited by in corpus (22)

• Galaxy bimodality versus stellar mass and environment
• Intergalactic Photon Spectra from the Far IR to the UV Lyman Limit for $0<z<6$ and the Optical Depth of the Universe to High Energy Gamma-Rays
• The Sloan-Lens ACS Survey II: stellar populations and internal structure of early-type lens galaxies
• The DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey: Evolution of the Color-Density Relation at 0.4 < z < 1.35
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey: The build-up of the colour-density relation
• The stellar population histories of early-type galaxies. III. The Coma Cluster
• The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS): The morphological content and enviromental dependence of the galaxy color-magnitude relation at z~0.7
• The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS): A quiescent formation of massive red-sequence galaxies over the past 9 Gyr
• The Red-Sequence Luminosity Function in Galaxy Clusters since z~1
• Photometric mass and mass decomposition in early-type lens galaxies
• The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: measuring the cosmic growth rate with the two-point galaxy correlation function
• The Color Bimodality in Galaxy Clusters since z = 0.9
• Dependence of Star Formation Activity On Stellar Mass and Environment From the Redshift One LDSS-3 Emission Line Survey (ROLES)
• Higher-Order Angular Galaxy Correlations in the SDSS: Redshift and Color Dependence of non-Linear Bias
• Age and Metallicities of Cluster Galaxies: A1185 and Coma
• Evolution of Group Galaxies from the First Red-Sequence Cluster Survey
• On Iron Enrichment, Star Formation, and Type Ia Supernovae in Galaxy Clusters
• Luminosity Functions of XMM-LSS C1 Galaxy Clusters
• The role of environment in low-level active galactic nucleus activity: no evidence for cluster enhancement
• A New Perspective on the Large-Scale Tidal Effect on the Galaxy Luminosity and Morphology
• Astrophysics in 2005
• The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: Galaxy Evolution at 0.25 < z < 0.75 Using The Second Red-Sequence Cluster Survey (RCS-2)