The environmental dependence of galaxy properties at z = 2

¹ European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2 85748 Garching bei München, Germany e-mail: mtanaka@eso.org
² Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa-shi, Chiba 277-8583, Japan
³ Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstraße, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany

Received: 22 December 2009
Accepted: 10 May 2010

Abstract

We report on the environmental dependence of galaxy properties at z=2.15. We construct multi-band photometric data sets in the (proto-)cluster PKS1138-26 field and in the GOODS field. We then fit spectral energy distributions of the galaxies with model templates generated with the latest stellar population synthesis code and derive physical properties of galaxies from the fits. To quantify the environmental dependence of galaxy properties, a special care is taken of systematic errors – we use data sets that have almost the same wavelength samplings, use the same code to fit SEDs with the same set of templates, and compare relative differences between the two samples. We find that the PKS1138 galaxies have similar ages, shorter star formation time scales, lower star formation rates, and weaker dust extinction compared to the GOODS galaxies at z ~ 2. This trend is similar to that observed locally, suggesting that the environmental dependence of galaxy properties is already partly in place as early as z = 2.15. We show that the PKS1138 galaxies assemble the bulk of their masses ~1 Gyr earlier than field galaxies, i.e., the galaxy formation depends on environment. Galaxy mergers should frequently occur during the first collapse of clusters and they might play an important role in driving the observed environmental dependence of galaxy properties at z = 2.15.