The effect of the environment on the stellar mass - size relation of present-day galaxies

TL;DR

This study investigates how the environment affects the stellar mass-size relation of nearby galaxies, revealing that galaxies in low-density regions tend to be larger and have greater scatter in their size-mass relation, especially for low-mass, late-type galaxies.

Contribution

It provides the first large-scale analysis of environmental effects on the stellar mass-size relation using a comprehensive galaxy sample and dual environment estimators.

Findings

Galaxies are larger in low-density environments, especially late-type and low-mass galaxies.

The scatter in the mass-size relation is greater in low-density regions, notably for low-mass, late-type galaxies.

Cluster galaxies appear to form earlier and from more homogeneous progenitors.

Abstract

To study how the environment can influence the relation between stellar mass and effective radius of nearby galaxies (z < 0.12), we use a mass-complete sample extracted from the NYU-Value Added Catalogue. This sample contains almost 232000 objects with masses up to $3\times10^{11}M_{\odot}$. For every galaxy in our sample, we explore the surrounding density within 2 Mpc using two different estimators of the environment. We find that galaxies tend to be larger in the field than in high density regions. This effect is more pronounced for late-type morphologies (~7.5% larger) and especially at low masses ($M < 2\times10^{10}M_{\odot}$), although early-type galaxies also show differences (~3.5%). The environment also leaves a subtle imprint in the scatter of the stellar mass-size relation. This scatter is larger in low density regions than in high density regions for both morphologies, on average ~3.5% larger for early-type and ~0.8% for late-type galaxies. Late-type galaxies with low masses ($M<2\times10^{10}M_{\odot}$) show the largest differences in the scatter among environments. The scatter is ~20% larger in the field than in clusters for these objects. Our analysis suggest that galaxies in clusters form earlier than those in the field. In addition, cluster galaxies seem to be originated from a more homogeneous family of progenitors.