Morphology-dependent trends of galaxy age with environment in Abell 901/902 seen with COMBO-17

Abstract

We investigate correlations between galaxy age and environment in the Abell 901/2 supercluster for separate morphologies. Using COMBO-17 data, we define a sample of 530 galaxies, complete at $M_V-5\log h<-18$ on an area of $3.5\times 3.5$ (Mpc/$h$)${}^2$. We explore several age indicators including an extinction-corrected residual from the colour-magnitude relation (CMR). As a result, we find a clear trend of age with density for galaxies of all morphologies that include a spheroidal component, in the sense that galaxies in denser environments are older. This trend is not seen among Scd/Irr galaxies since they all have young ages. However, the trend among the other types is stronger for fainter galaxies. While we also see an expected age-morphology relation, we find no evidence for a morphology-density relation at fixed age.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS (Letters)

References in corpus (3)

• The star formation history of early-type galaxies as a function of mass and environment
• The Different Environmental Dependencies of Star-formation for Giant and Dwarf Galaxies
• The NOAO Fundamental Plane Survey - III. Variations in the stellar populations of red-sequence galaxies from the cluster core to the virial radius

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Galaxy Zoo: the dependence of morphology and colour on environment
• The STAGES view of red spirals and dusty red galaxies: Mass-dependent quenching of star-formation in cluster infall
• STAGES: the Space Telescope A901/2 Galaxy Evolution Survey
• Revealing components of the galaxy population through nonparametric techniques
• The morphological transformation and the quenching of galaxies
• OMEGA - OSIRIS Mapping of Emission-line Galaxies in A901/2: III. - Galaxy Properties Across Projected Phase Space in A901/2
• Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam revisits the large-scale environmental dependence on galaxy morphology over 360 deg${}^2$ at z=0.3-0.6
• The MAGPI Survey: the subtle role of environment and not-so-subtle impact of generations of stars on galaxy dynamics
• Morphological Transformation and Star Formation Quenching of Massive Galaxies at 0.5 < z < 2.5 in 3D-HST/CANDELS