A Huge Filamentary Structure at z=0.55 and Star Formation Histories of Galaxies at z<1

TL;DR

This study confirms a large-scale filamentary structure at z=0.55 around a super-rich cluster, and investigates star formation histories of galaxies in different environments, revealing environment-driven star formation truncation since z~1.

Contribution

First spectroscopic confirmation of a massive filamentary structure at z=0.55, providing a unique environment to study galaxy evolution and star formation history.

Findings

Confirmed physical connection of filaments extending over 20 Mpc.

Red galaxies in groups at z~0.8 and in the field at z~0.5 show signs of recent star formation truncation.

Star formation is likely truncated by galaxy-galaxy interactions since z~1.

Abstract

We report a definitive confirmation of a large-scale structure around the super rich cluster CL0016+1609 at z=0.55. We made spectroscopic follow-up observations with FOCAS on Subaru along the large filamentary structure identified in our previous photometric studies. We have confirmed the physical connection of the huge filament extending over 20 Mpc in the N-S direction, and another filament extending from the main cluster to the East. Based on a simple energy argument, we show that it is likely that most of the clumps are bound to the main CL0016 cluster. This structure is surely one of the most prominent confirmed structures ever identified in the distant Universe, which then serves as an ideal laboratory to examine the environmental variation of galaxy properties. We draw star formation histories of galaxies from the composite spectra of red galaxies in field, group, and cluster environments. Combining the results from our previous studies, we find that red galaxies in groups at z~0.8 and red field galaxies at z~0.5 show strong Hd absorption lines for their D4000 indices. These are the environments in which we observed the on-going build-up of the colour-magnitude relation in our previous photometric analyses. The strong Hd absorption lines imply that their star formation is truncated on a relatively short time scale. We suggest that a galaxy-galaxy interaction is the most likely physical driver of the truncation of star formation and thus responsible for the build-up of the colour-magnitude relation since z~1. (Abridged)