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The Environment of Massive Quiescent Compact Galaxies at 0.1 < z < 0.4 in the COSMOS Field

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Abstract

  • We use Hectospec mounted on the 6.5 m MMT to carry out a redshift survey of red (r-i\gt 0.2, g-r\gt 0.8, r\lt 21.3) galaxies in the Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS) field to measure the environments of massive compact quiescent galaxies at intermediate redshift. The \gt 90% complete magnitude limited survey includes redshifts for 1766 red galaxies with r\lt 20.8 covering the central square degree of the field; 65% of the redshifts in this sample are new. We select a complete magnitude limited quiescent sample based on the rest-frame UVJ colors. When the density distribution is sampled on a scale of 2 Mpc, massive compact galaxies inhabit systematically denser regions than the parent quiescent galaxy population. Noncompact quiescent galaxies with the same stellar masses as their compact counterparts populate a similar distribution of environments. Thus the massive nature of quiescent compacts accounts for the environment dependence and appears fundamental to their history.

Publication Date

  • 2015

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