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Published September 2013 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

The environmental dependence of the stellar mass function at z ~ 1: Comparing cluster and field between the GCLASS and UltraVISTA surveys

Abstract

Aims. We present the stellar mass functions (SMFs) of star-forming and quiescent galaxies from observations of ten rich, red-sequence selected, clusters in the Gemini Cluster Astrophysics Spectroscopic Survey (GCLASS) in the redshift range 0.86 < z < 1.34. We compare our results with field measurements at similar redshifts using data from a K_s-band selected catalogue of the COSMOS/UltraVISTA field. Methods. We construct a K_s-band selected multi-colour catalogue for the clusters in eleven photometric bands covering u-8 μm, and estimate photometric redshifts and stellar masses using spectral energy distribution fitting techniques. To correct for interlopers in our cluster sample, we use the deep spectroscopic component of GCLASS, which contains spectra for 1282 identified cluster and field galaxies taken with Gemini/GMOS. This allowed us to correct cluster number counts from a photometric selection for false positive and false negative identifications. Both the photometric and spectroscopic samples are sufficiently deep that we can probe the SMF down to masses of 10^10 M_⊙. Results. We distinguish between star-forming and quiescent galaxies using the rest-frame U − V versus V − J diagram, and find that the best-fitting Schechter parameters α and M∗ are similar within the uncertainties for these galaxy types within the different environments. However, there is a significant difference in the shape and normalisation of the total SMF between the clusters and the field sample. This difference in the total SMF is primarily a reflection of the increased fraction of quiescent galaxies in high-density environments. We apply a simple quenching model that includes components of mass- and environment-driven quenching, and find that in this picture 45^(+4)_(-3)% of the star-forming galaxies, which normally would be forming stars in the field, are quenched by the cluster. Conclusions. If galaxies in clusters and the field quench their star formation via different mechanisms, these processes have to conspire in such a way that the shapes of the quiescent and star-forming SMF remain similar in these different environments.

Additional Information

© 2013 ESO. Article published by EDP Sciences. Received 4 February 2013; Accepted 30 May 2013. Published online 14 August 2013. We thank Gregory Rudnick, Marijn Franx and Simone Weinmann for discussions and helpful suggestions for this study. Further we thank Jean-Charles Cuillandre for providing information on the MegaCam amplifier drift problem, and Michael Balogh for general feedback on the paper draft. R. F. J. van der Burg and H. Hoekstra acknowledge support from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientic Research grant number 639.042.814. C. Lidman is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (programme number FT0992259). H. Hildebrandt is supported by the Marie Curie IOF 252760, a CITA National Fellowship, and the DFG grant Hi 1495/2-1. R.D. gratefully acknowledges the support provided by the BASAL Center for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies (CATA), and by FONDECYT grant N. 1130528. Based on observations obtained at the Gemini Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), the National Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), the Australian Research Council (Australia), Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brazil) and Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva (Argentina). Based on observations obtained with MegaPrime/MegaCam, a joint project of CFHT and CEA/DAPNIA, at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institute National des Sciences de l'Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique of France, and the University of Hawaii. Based on observations obtained with WIRCam, a joint project of CFHT, Taiwan, Korea, Canada, France, and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institute National des Sciences de l'Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique of France, and the University of Hawaii. This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. Support for this work was provided by NASA through an award issued by JPL/Caltech. This paper includes data gathered with the 6.5 m Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. This work is based on observations obtained at the CTIO Blanco 4-m telescopes, which are operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc. (AURA), under a cooperative agreement with the NSF as part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO). Based on observations that were carried out using the Very Large Telescope at the ESO Paranal Observatory. Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatories under ESO programme ID 179.A-2005 and on data products produced by TERAPIX and the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit on behalf of the UltraVISTA consortium.

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August 22, 2023
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