The stellar mass function of quiescent galaxies in 2 < z < 2.5 protoclusters

Edward, Adit H; Balogh, Michael L; Bahé, Yannick M; Cooper, M C; Hatch, Nina A; Marchioni, Justin; Muzzin, Adam; Noble, Allison; Rudnick, Gregory H; Vulcani, Benedetta; Wilson, Gillian; De Lucia, Gabriella; Demarco, Ricardo; Forrest, Ben; Hirschmann, Michaela; Castignani, Gianluca; Cerulo, Pierluigi; Finn, Rose A; Hewitt, Guillaume; Jablonka, Pascale; Kodama, Tadayuki; Maurogordato, Sophie; Nantais, Julie; Xie, Lizhi

Abstract

We present an analysis of the galaxy stellar mass function (SMF) of 14 known protoclusters between 2.0 < z < 2.5 in the COSMOS field, down to a mass limit of 10 9.5 M⊙. We use existing photometric redshifts with a statistical background subtraction, and consider star-forming and quiescent galaxies identified from (NUV − r) and (r − J) colours separately. Our fiducial sample includes galaxies within 1 Mpc of the cluster centres. The shape of the protocluster SMF of star-forming galaxies is indistinguishable from that of the general field at this redshift. Quiescent galaxies, however, show a flatter SMF than in the field, with an upturn at low mass, though this is only significant at ∼2σ. There is no strong evidence for a dominant population of quiescent galaxies at any mass, with a fraction <15 per cent at 1σ confidence for galaxies with log M*/M⊙ < 10.5. We compare our results with a sample of galaxy groups at 1 < z < 1.5, and demonstrate that a significant amount of environmental quenching must take place between these epochs, increasing the relative abundance of high-mass (⁠⁠M* > 10 10.5 M⊙) quiescent galaxies by a factor ≳ 2. However, we find that at lower masses (⁠⁠M* < 10 10.5 M⊙), no additional environmental quenching is required.

Citation

Edward, A. H., Balogh, M. L., Bahé, Y. M., Cooper, M. C., Hatch, N. A., Marchioni, J., …Xie, L. (2024). The stellar mass function of quiescent galaxies in 2 < z < 2.5 protoclusters. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 527(3), 8598–8617. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad3751

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 1, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Dec 6, 2023
• Publication Date: 2024-01
• Deposit Date: Dec 20, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 20, 2023
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Print ISSN: 0035-8711
• Electronic ISSN: 1365-2966
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 527
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 8598–8617
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad3751
• Keywords: galaxies: clusters: general, galaxies: evolution
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/28152812
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/527/3/8598/7459937