Galaxy And Mass Assembly : deconstructing bimodality - I. Red ones and blue ones
Abstract
We measure the mass functions for generically red and blue galaxies, using a z < 0.12 sample of log M* > 8.7 field galaxies from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. Our motivation is that, as we show, the dominant uncertainty in existing measurements stems from how ‘red’ and ‘blue’ galaxies have been selected/defined. Accordingly, we model our data as two naturally overlapping populations, each with their own mass function and colour–mass relation, which enables us characterize the two populations without having to specify a priori which galaxies are ‘red’ and ‘blue’. Our results then provide the means to derive objective operational definitions for the terms ‘red’ and ‘blue’, which are based on the phenomenology of the colour–mass diagrams. Informed by this descriptive modelling, we show that (1) after accounting for dust, the stellar colours of ‘blue’ galaxies do not depend strongly on mass; (2) the tight, flat ‘dead sequence’ does not extend much below log M* ∼ 10.5; instead, (3) the stellar colours of ‘red’ galaxies vary rather strongly with mass, such that lower mass ‘red’ galaxies have bluer stellar populations; (4) below log M* ∼ 9.3, the ‘red’ population dissolves into obscurity, and it becomes problematic to talk about two distinct populations; as a consequence, (5) it is hard to meaningfully constrain the shape, including the existence of an upturn, of the ‘red’ galaxy mass function below log M* ∼ 9.3. Points 1–4 provide meaningful targets for models of galaxy formation and evolution to aim for.
Citation
Taylor , E N , Hopkins , A M , Baldry , I K , Bland-Hawthorn , J , Brown , M J I , Colless , M , Driver , S , Norberg , P , Robotham , A S G , Alpaslan , M , Brough , S , Cluver , M E , Gunawhardhana , M , Kelvin , L S , Liske , J , Conselice , C J , Croom , S , Foster , C , Jarrett , T H , Lopez , M L & Loveday , J 2015 , ' Galaxy And Mass Assembly : deconstructing bimodality - I. Red ones and blue ones ' , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , vol. 446 , no. 2 , pp. 2144-2185 . https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stu1900
Publication
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0035-8711Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2014, the Author(s). This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stu1900
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