J/A+A/703/A300 Environmental effects on galaxy activity (Morales-Vargas+, 2025)
The effects of the environment on the central activity of galaxies as derived
using mid-IR tracers.
Morales-Vargas A., Boquien M., Boselli A., Nitschelm C., Dorey O.,
Salas H.
<Astron. Astrophys. 703, A300 (2025)>
=2025A&A...703A.300M 2025A&A...703A.300M (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Clusters, galaxy ; Galaxies, photometry ; Photometry, infrared
Keywords: galaxies: active - galaxies: clusters: general - galaxies: evolution -
galaxies: photometry
Abstract:
By exploiting photometry from the Wide-field Infrared Survey
Explorer (WISE), we investigate the influence of environment and
stellar mass on the prevalence of different excitation types in the
interstellar gas of central regions of galaxies in the Herschel
Reference Survey (HRS, z~=0.0047). This analysis is extended to a
complementary sample of relatively nearby galaxies currently
undergoing ram-pressure stripping (RPS, z~=0.0195). Our goal is to
assess whether a connection exists between active galactic nucleus
(AGN) activity and either the cluster environment or the ram-pressure
stripping process.
We compute WISE mid-infrared colour indices from fluxes extracted from
central apertures and apply two established mid-infrared diagnostic
diagrams to distinguish AGN activity from non-AGN, and star-forming
galaxy (SFG) excitation from that associated with "retired" galaxies.
The resulting types of excitation are then used in conjunction with
stellar mass and environment classifications to construct a stellar
mass-excitation fraction relation.
The stellar mass-excitation fraction relation reveals that global
stellar mass is the primary driver of excitation diversity in galaxy
centres. In increasing order of prevalence, excitation types follow a
sequence from SFG to retired galaxies with increasing mass. The number
of low-mass galaxies is too small to drive statistical tendencies. In
contrast, SFG excitation becomes dominant at intermediate masses. At
the highest mass end, retired-galaxy clearly prevails. SFG is the most
common across the full mass range and in nearly all environments,
except for HI-gas deficient HRS galaxies, which are mostly retired.
The excitation properties of galaxies undergoing RPS resemble those of
HRS cluster members, field, and normal HI-content galaxies, minimizing
the environmental role. Contrary to previous results, we do not see
any increase of the AGN activity in HI-deficient cluster galaxies nor
in those undergoing RPS since its fractions (∼10% for Sy2 and ∼20% for
LINER) remain largely unaffected along all environments.
These findings indicate that while rich environments are associated to
certain excitation types, stellar mass remains the primary driver of
excitation diversity in galaxy centres.
Description:
We present complete mid-infrared photometry to characterize
the central activity of galaxies via the combination of two colour
diagrams.
File Summary:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ReadMe 80 . This file
tabled1.dat 185 323 Mid-infrared photometry for the HRS sample
tabled2.dat 184 79 Mid-infrared photometry for the RPS sample
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also:
J/AJ/90/1681 : The Virgo Cluster Catalog (VCC) (Binggeli+, 1985)
J/PASP/122/261 : Herschel Reference Survey Sample (Boselli+, 2010)
J/A+A/564/A65 : Cold gas properties of Herschel Reference Survey
(Boselli+, 2014)
J/A+A/615/A104 : HRS gal. nuclear vs. integrated spectroscopy (Gavazzi+, 2018)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: tabled1.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 3 I3 --- HRS [1/323] HRS identification
5- 17 A13 --- Name Galaxy designation
19- 24 A6 --- Morph Morphological type (1)
26- 29 I4 --- VCC ? VCC identification (2)
31- 35 F5.2 [Msun] logMstar ? Stellar mass (3)
37- 43 F7.2 mJy FW1iap ? W1-band flux density (4)
45- 50 F6.2 mJy e_FW1iap ? W1-band flux density uncertainty (4) (5)
52- 58 F7.2 mJy FW2iap W2-band flux density (4)
60- 65 F6.2 mJy e_FW2iap W2-band flux density uncertainty (4) (5)
67- 73 F7.2 mJy FW3iap W3-band flux density (4)
75- 80 F6.2 mJy e_FW3iap W3-band flux density uncertainty (4) (5)
82- 88 F7.2 mJy FW4iap ? W4-band flux density (4)
90- 95 F6.2 mJy e_FW4iap ? W4-band flux density uncertainty (4) (5)
97-103 F7.2 mJy FW1cap ? W1-band flux density (6)
105-110 F6.2 mJy e_FW1cap ? W1-band flux density uncertainty (6) (5)
112-117 F6.2 mJy FW2cap W2-band flux density (6)
119-124 F6.2 mJy e_FW2cap W2-band flux density uncertainty (6) (5)
126-132 F7.2 mJy FW3cap W3-band flux density (6)
134-139 F6.2 mJy e_FW3cap W3-band flux density uncertainty (6) (5)
141-147 F7.2 mJy FW4cap ? W4-band flux density (6)
149-155 F7.2 mJy e_FW4cap ? W4-band flux density uncertainty (6) (5)
157-161 I5 --- Nint Number of image pixels considered in the
integrated aperture
163-166 I4 --- Ncent Number of image pixels considered in the
central aperture
168-174 A7 --- Class Excitation class from a central aperture
176-180 F5.2 --- DHI ? Neutral-gas deficiency parameter (7)
182-185 A4 --- WHAN WHAN excitation class (8)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): Taken from Boselli et al. (2010PASP..122..261B 2010PASP..122..261B, Cat. J/PASP/122/261).
Note (2): Taken from Binggeli et al. (1985AJ.....90.1681B 1985AJ.....90.1681B, Cat. J/AJ/90/1681).
Note (3): Obtained as described in the article Section 2.3.2.
Note (4): Based on integrated apertures (article Section 3.1.4).
Note (5): Uncertainties are the standard deviation within each galaxy dataset.
Note (6): Based on central apertures (article Section 3.1.4).
Note (7): Taken from Boselli et al. (2014A&A...564A..65B 2014A&A...564A..65B, Cat. J/A+A/564/A65).
Note (8): Taken from Gavazzi et al. (2018A&A...615A.104G 2018A&A...615A.104G, Cat. J/A+A/615/A104,
including passive = PAS and post-starburst = PSB).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: tabled2.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 3 I3 --- HRS [102/247]? HRS identification
5- 15 A11 --- Name Galaxy designation
17- 21 A5 --- Morph Morphological type (1)
23- 26 I4 --- VCC ? VCC identification (2)
28- 32 F5.2 [Msun] logMstar Stellar mass (3)
34- 40 F7.2 mJy FW1iap W1-band flux density (4)
42- 47 F6.2 mJy e_FW1iap W1-band flux density uncertainty (4) (5)
49- 54 F6.2 mJy FW2iap W2-band flux density (4)
56- 61 F6.2 mJy e_FW2iap W2-band flux density uncertainty (4) (5)
63- 69 F7.2 mJy FW3iap W3-band flux density (4)
71- 76 F6.2 mJy e_FW3iap W3-band flux density uncertainty (4) (5)
78- 84 F7.2 mJy FW4iap W4-band flux density (4)
86- 91 F6.2 mJy e_FW4iap W4-band flux density uncertainty (4) (5)
93- 98 F6.2 mJy FW1cap ? W1-band flux density (6)
100-105 F6.2 mJy e_FW1cap ? W1-band flux density uncertainty (6) (5)
107-112 F6.2 mJy FW2cap ? W2-band flux density (6)
114-119 F6.2 mJy e_FW2cap ? W2-band flux density uncertainty (6) (5)
121-127 F7.2 mJy FW3cap ? W3-band flux density (6)
129-134 F6.2 mJy e_FW3cap ? W3-band flux density uncertainty (6) (5)
136-142 F7.2 mJy FW4cap ? W4-band flux density (6)
144-149 F6.2 mJy e_FW4cap ? W4-band flux density uncertainty (6) (5)
151-155 I5 --- Nint Number of image pixels considered in
the integrated aperture
157-160 I4 --- Ncent ? Number of image pixels considered in
the central aperture
162-168 A7 --- Class Excitation class from a central aperture
170-174 A5 --- Cluster Name of host galaxy cluster
176-179 A4 --- Process Process associated to the undergoing
perturbation (7)
181-184 A4 --- WHAN WHAN excitation class (8)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): Taken from Boselli et al. (2010PASP..122..261B 2010PASP..122..261B, Cat. J/PASP/122/261),
Boselli et al. (2022A&ARv..30....3B 2022A&ARv..30....3B ), and NED.
Note (2): Taken from Binggeli et al. (1985AJ.....90.1681B 1985AJ.....90.1681B, Cat. J/AJ/90/1681).
Note (3): Obtained as described in the article Section 2.3.2.
Note (4): Based on integrated apertures (article Section 3.1.4).
Note (5): Uncertainties are the standard deviation within each galaxy dataset.
Note (6): Based on central apertures (article Section 3.1.4).
Note (7): According to Boselli et al. (2022A&ARv..30....3B 2022A&ARv..30....3B ) as:
RP = ram pressure
M = merging
H = harassment
RP acting solely might indicate process strength.
Note (8): Taken from Boselli et al. (2022A&ARv..30....3B 2022A&ARv..30....3B).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acknowledgements:
Abdias Morales-Vargas: abdias.morales(at)uantof.cl
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 22-Sep-2025