Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 436, Issue 1, Pages 635-649Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stt1601
Keywords
methods: statistical; galaxies: clusters: general; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: haloes; galaxies: interactions; galaxies: statistics
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [DGE-1035963]
- NSF [AST-1009999]
- UC Irvine Center for Cosmology
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- National Science Foundation
- US Department of Energy
- Japanese Monbukagakusho
- Max Planck Society
- University of Chicago
- Fermilab
- Institute for Advanced Study
- Japan Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA)
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA)
- New Mexico State University
- University of Pittsburgh
- Princeton University
- United States Naval Observatory
- University of Washington
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1108802] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1009999] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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We have devised a method to select galaxies that are isolated in their dark matter halo (N = 1 systems) and galaxies that reside in a group of exactly two (N = 2 systems). Our N = 2 systems are widely separated (up to similar to 200 h(-1) kpc), where close galaxy-galaxy interactions are not dominant. We apply our selection criteria to two volume-limited samples of galaxies from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6 (SDSS DR6) with M-r - 5 log(10) h <= -19 and -20 to study the effects of the environment of very sparse groups on galaxy colour. For satellite galaxies in a group of two, we find a red excess attributed to star formation quenching of 0.15 +/- 0.01 and 0.14 +/- 0.01 for the -19 and -20 samples, respectively, relative to isolated galaxies of the same stellar mass. Assuming N = 1 systems are the progenitors of N = 2 systems, an immediate-rapid star formation quenching scenario is inconsistent with these observations. A delayed-then-rapid star formation quenching scenario with a delay time of 3.3 and 3.7 Gyr for the -19 and -20 samples, respectively, yields a red excess prediction in agreement with the observations. The observations also reveal that central galaxies in a group of two have a slight blue excess of 0.06 +/- 0.02 and 0.02 +/- 0.01 for the -19 and -20 samples, respectively, relative to N = 1 populations of the same stellar mass. Our results demonstrate that even the environment of very sparse groups of luminous galaxies influence galaxy evolution and in-depth studies of these simple systems are an essential step towards understanding galaxy evolution in general.
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