A high-dimensional look at VIPERS galaxies

TL;DR

This study analyzes the complex relationships between galaxy properties and their environments in the VIPERS survey using high-dimensional statistical methods, revealing that stellar mass largely explains galaxy characteristics but residual environmental effects persist.

Contribution

It introduces a high-dimensional analysis approach to galaxy clustering, identifying the dominant role of stellar mass and uncovering residual environmental correlations.

Findings

Galaxy properties mainly depend on stellar mass.

Residual correlations indicate complex formation processes.

Subsamples with specific clustering are constructed for cosmological tests.

Abstract

We investigate how galaxies in VIPERS (the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey) inhabit the cosmological density field by examining the correlations across the observable parameter space of galaxy properties and clustering strength. The high-dimensional analysis is made manageable by the use of group-finding and regression tools. We find that the major trends in galaxy properties can be explained by a single parameter related to stellar mass. After subtracting this trend, residual correlations remain between galaxy properties and the local environment pointing to complex formation dependencies. As a specific application of this work we build subsamples of galaxies with specific clustering properties for use in cosmological tests.