Issue |
A&A
Volume 693, January 2025
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A219 | |
Number of page(s) | 19 | |
Section | Numerical methods and codes | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202449232 | |
Published online | 20 January 2025 |
A semi-analytical perspective on massive red galaxies
I. Assembly history, environment, and redshift evolution
1
Departamento de Física Teórica, Módulo 15, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid,
Cantoblanco,
28049
Madrid,
Spain
2
Instituto de Astrofísica, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Campus San Joaquín,
Avda. Vicuña Mackenna
4860,
Santiago,
Chile
3
Facultad de Físicas, Universidad de Sevilla,
Campus de Reina Mercedes, Avda. Reina Mercedes s/n,
41012
Sevilla,
Spain
4
Departamento de Física, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María,
Casilla 110-V, Avda. España
1680,
Valparaíso,
Chile
5
Universidad Andres Bello, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Departamento de Ciencias Físicas, Instituto de Astrofísica,
Av. Fernández Concha 700,
Santiago,
Chile
6
Centro de Investigación Avanzada en Física Fundamental (CIAFF), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid,
28049
Madrid,
Spain
7
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, University of Western Australia,
35 Stirling Highway,
Crawley,
Western Australia
6009,
Australia
8
Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental (IATE), CONICET-UNC,
Laprida 854, X5000BGR,
Córdoba,
Argentina
9
Carnegie Observatories,
813 Santa Barbara Street,
Pasadena,
CA
91101,
USA
10
Institut für Astrophysik, Georg-August Universität Göttingen,
Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1,
37077
Göttingen,
Germany
★ Corresponding author; doris.stoppacher@uam.es; dstoppacher@us.es
Received:
15
January
2024
Accepted:
4
December
2024
Context. The evolution of galaxies within a self-consistent cosmological context remains one of the most outstanding and challenging topics in modern galaxy formation theory. Investigating the assembly history and various formation scenarios of the most massive and passive galaxies, particularly those found in the densest clusters, will enhance understanding of why galaxies exhibit such a remarkable diversity in structure and morphology.
Aims. In this paper, we simultaneously investigate the assembly history and redshift evolution of semi-analytically modelled galaxy properties of luminous and massive central galaxies between 0.56 < z < 4.15 alongside their connection to their halos as a function of large-scale environment.
Methods. We extracted sub-samples of galaxies from a mock catalogue representative of the well-known BOSS-CMASS sample, which includes the most massive and passively evolving system known today. Utilising typical galaxy properties such as star formation rate, (ɡ-i) colour, and cold gas-phase metallicity (Zcold), we tracked the redshift evolution of these properties across the main progenitor trees.
Results. We present results on galaxy and halo properties, including their growth and clustering functions, for each of our sub-samples. Our findings indicate that galaxies in the highest stellar and halo mass regimes are the least metal enriched (using Zcold as a proxy) and consistently exhibit significantly larger black hole masses and higher clustering amplitudes compared to sub-samples selected by such properties as colour or star formation rate. This population forms later and retains large reservoirs of cold gas. In contrast, galaxies in the intermediate and lower stellar or halo mass regimes consume their cold gas at a higher redshift and were among the earliest and quickest to assemble their stellar and black hole masses. In addition, we observed a clear trend where the clustering of the galaxies selected according to their Zcold-values (either low-Zcold or high-Zcold) depends on the density of their location within the large-scale environment.
Conclusions. We assume that the galaxies in the low-Zcold and high-Zcold sub-samples form and evolve through distinct evolutionary channels that are predetermined by their location within the large-scale environment of the cosmic web. Furthermore, their clustering dependence on the environment could be an important area for further investigation.
Key words: methods: numerical / galaxies: evolution / galaxies: formation / large-scale structure of Universe
© The Authors 2025
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article is published in open access under the Subscribe to Open model. Subscribe to A&A to support open access publication.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.