Bibcode
Calvi, R.; Poggianti, Bianca M.; Vulcani, Benedetta; Fasano, Giovanni
Referencia bibliográfica
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 432, Issue 4, p.3141-3152
Fecha de publicación:
7
2013
Número de citas
38
Número de citas referidas
35
Descripción
We study the galaxy stellar mass function in different environments in
the local Universe, considering both the total mass function and that of
individual galaxy morphological types. We compare the mass functions of
galaxies with log10M*/M⊙ ≥ 10.25
in the general field and in galaxy groups, binary and single galaxy
systems from the Padova-Millennium Galaxy and Group Catalogue at z =
0.04-0.1 with the mass function of galaxy clusters of the WIde-field
Nearby Galaxy-Cluster Survey at z = 0.04-0.07. Strikingly, the
variations of the mass function with global environment, overall, are
small and subtle. The shapes of the mass functions of the general field
and clusters are indistinguishable, and only small, statistically
insignificant variations are allowed in groups. Only the mass function
of our single galaxies, representing the least massive haloes and
comprising less than a third of the general field population, is
proportionally richer in low-mass galaxies than other environments. The
most notable environmental effect is a progressive change in the upper
galaxy mass, with very massive galaxies found only in the most massive
environments. This environment-dependent mass cut-off is unable to
affect the Schechter parameters and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, and can
only be revealed by an ad hoc analysis. Finally, we show how, in each
given environment, the mass function changes with morphological type,
and that galaxies of the same morphological type can have different mass
functions in different environments.