The environmental dependence of the stellar mass fundamental plane of early-type galaxies

Department of Astronomy, University of Science and Technology of China, Jinzhai Road 96, 230026 Hefei, PR China
e-mail: wywa@ustc.edu.cn

Received: 23 November 2015
Accepted: 1 February 2016

Abstract

Aims. We investigate the environmental dependence of the stellar mass fundamental plane (FP_∗) using the early-type galaxy sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release 7 (SDSS DR7).

Methods. The FP_∗ is calculated by replacing the luminosity in the FP with stellar mass. Based on the SDSS group catalog, we characterize the galaxy environment according to the mass of the host dark matter halo and the position in the halo. In halos with the same mass bin, the color distributions of central and satellite galaxies are different. Therefore, we calculate FP_∗ coefficients of galaxies in different environments and compare them with those of the FP to study the contribution of the stellar population.

Results. We find that coefficient a of the FP_∗ is systematically larger than that of the FP, but coefficient b of the FP_∗ is similar to the FP. Moreover, the environmental dependence of the FP_∗ is similar to that of the FP. For central galaxies, FP_∗ coefficients are significantly dependent on the halo mass. For satellite galaxies, the correlation between FP_∗ coefficients and the halo mass is weak.

Conclusions. We conclude that the tilt of the FP is not primarily driven by the stellar population.