VST-GAME: Galaxy assembly as a function of mass and environment with VST

Photometric assessment and density field of MACSJ0416^★

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “Galileo Galilei”, Università degli studi di Padova, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 3, 35122 Padova, Italy
e-mail: gilbertonicolas.estradamartinez@phd.unipd.it
² INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio, 5, 35122 Padova, Italy
³ INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Via Moiariello 16, 80131 Napoli, Italy
e-mail: amata.mercurio@inaf.it
⁴ Dipartimento di Fisica “E.R. Caianiello”, Università Degli Studi di Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy
⁵ INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, via Tiepolo 11, 34143 Trieste, Italy
⁶ Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università degli Studi di Trieste, Sezione di Astronomia, via Tiepolo 11, 34143 Trieste, Italy
⁷ Centro de Astrobiología, Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial, Ctra de Torrejón a Ajalvir, km 4, 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain
⁸ Dipartimento di Fisica e Scienze della Terra, Università di Ferrara, Via Saragat 1, 44122 Ferrara, Italy
⁹ INAF – OAS, Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna, via Gobetti 93/3, 40129 Bologna, Italy
¹⁰ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, via Celoria 16, 20133 Milano, Italy
¹¹ INAF – IASF Milano, via A. Corti 12, 20133 Milano, Italy
¹² Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
¹³ Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe (IFPU), via Beirut 2, 34151 Trieste, Italy
¹⁴ Dipartimento di Fisica “Ettore Pancini”, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Cinthia, 80126 Napoli, Italy
¹⁵ Departamento di Astronomía, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas, Universidad de Concepción, Avenida Esteban Iturra s/n, Casilla 160-C, Concepción, Chile
¹⁶ Instituto de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso, Avda. Universidad 330, Placilla, Valparaíso, Chile
¹⁷ Gemini Observatory, NSF’s NOIRLab, 670 N. A’ohoku Place, Hilo, Hawaii, 96720, USA
¹⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA

Received: 27 September 2022
Accepted: 1 December 2022

Abstract

Context. Observational studies have widely demonstrated that galaxy physical properties are strongly affected by the surrounding environment. On one side, gas inflows provide galaxies with new fuel for star formation. On the other side, the high temperatures and densities of the medium are expected to induce quenching in the star formation. Observations of large structures, in particular filaments at the cluster outskirts (r > 2r₂₀₀), are currently limited to the low redshift Universe. Deep and wide photometric data, better if combined with spectroscopic redshifts, are required to explore several scenarios on galaxy evolution at intermediate redshift.

Aims. We present a multi-band dataset for the cluster MACS J0416.1-2403 (z = 0.397), observed in the context of the Galaxy Assembly as a function of Mass and Environment with the VLT Survey Telescope (VST-GAME) survey. The project is aimed at gathering deep (r < 24.4) and wide (approx. 20x20 Mpc²) observations at optical (u, ɡ, r, i, VST) wavelengths for six massive galaxy clusters at 0.2 < z < 0.6, complemented with near-infrared data (Y, J, Ks, VISTA, ESO public survey GCAV). The aim is to investigate galaxy evolution in a wide range of stellar masses and environmental conditions. This work describes the photometric analysis of the cluster and the definition of a density field, which will be a key ingredient for further studies on galaxy properties in the cluster outskirts.

Methods. We extracted sources paying particular attention to recovering the faintest ones and simultaneously flagging point sources and sources with photometry affected by artifacts in the images. We combined all the extractions in a multiband catalog that is used to derive photometric redshifts through spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting. We then defined cluster memberships up to 5r₂₀₀ from the cluster core and measure the density field, comparing galaxy properties in different environments.

Results. We find that the ɡ – r colors show bimodal behaviors in all the environments, but the peak of the distribution of red galaxies shifts toward redder colors with increasing density, and the fraction of galaxies in the blue cloud increases with decreasing density. We also found three overdense regions in the cluster outskirts at r ~ 5r₂₀₀. Galaxies in these structures have mean densities and luminosities similar to those of the cluster core. The color of galaxies suggests the presence of evolved galaxy populations, an insight into preprocessing phenomena over these substructures. We release the multiband catalog, down to the completeness limit of r < 24.4 mag.