Red Star Forming Galaxies and Their Environment at z=0.4 Revealed by Panoramic H-alpha Imaging

TL;DR

This study uses wide-field H-alpha imaging to analyze star-forming galaxies around a z=0.4 cluster, revealing environment-dependent galaxy properties and a rapid increase in cluster star formation rates with redshift.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the environmental dependence of star formation and galaxy colors, and quantifies the evolution of cluster star formation rates over cosmic time.

Findings

Star formation fraction declines toward cluster centers.

Red H-alpha emitters are more common in groups away from the cluster.

Cluster star formation rate increases rapidly with redshift, following ~(1+z)^6.

Abstract

We present a wide-field H-alpha imaging survey of the rich cluster CL0939+4713 (Abell 851) at z=0.41 with Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope, using the narrow-band filter NB921. The survey is sensitive to active galaxies with star formation rates down to ~0.3Msun/yr throughout the 27'x27' field, and we identified 445 H-alpha emitters along the large-scale structures around the cluster. Using this sample, we find that (1) the fraction of H-alpha emitters is a strong function of environment and shows a clear decline toward the cluster central region. We also find that (2) the color of H-alpha emitters is clearly dependent on environment. The majority of the H-alpha emitters have blue colors with B-I<2, but we find H-alpha emitters with red colors as well. Such red emitters are very rare in the cluster center or its immediate surrounding regions, while they are most frequently found in groups located far away from the cluster center. These groups coincide with the environment where a sharp transition in galaxy color distribution is seen. This may suggest that dusty star formation activity tends to be involved in galaxy truncation processes that are effective in groups, and it is probably related to the "pre-processing" that generates present-day cluster S0 galaxies. Finally, we confirm that (3) the mass-normalized integrated star formation rate in clusters (i.e. the total star formation rate within 0.5xR200 from the cluster center divided by the cluster dynamical mass) rapidly increases with look-back time following approximately ~(1+z)^6, and it is also correlated with the cluster mass.