The environmental dependence of the stellar mass fundamental plane of early-type galaxies

TL;DR

This study examines how the stellar mass fundamental plane of early-type galaxies varies with environment, finding that the tilt is not mainly caused by stellar populations and that environment influences the fundamental plane coefficients.

Contribution

It introduces the use of stellar mass instead of luminosity in the fundamental plane and analyzes environmental effects on its coefficients for different galaxy types.

Findings

FP* coefficient a is larger than FP coefficient a

FP* coefficient b is similar to FP coefficient b

Environmental dependence of FP* is similar to that of FP

Abstract

Aims. We investigate the environmental dependence of the stellar mass fundamental plane (FP$_*$) using the early-type galaxy sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7). Methods. The FP$_*$ is calculated by replacing the luminosity in the fundamental plane (FP) with stellar mass. Based on the SDSS group catalog, we characterize the galaxy environment according to the mass of the host dark matter halo and the position in the halo. In halos with the same mass bin, the color distributions of central and satellite galaxies are different. Therefore, we calculate FP$_*$ coefficients of galaxies in different environments and compare them with those of the FP to study the contribution of the stellar population. Results. We find that coefficient $a$ of the FP$_*$ is systematically larger than that of the FP, but coefficient $b$ of the FP$_*$ is similar to the FP. Moreover, the environmental dependence of the FP$_*$ is similar to that of the FP. For central galaxies, FP$_*$ coefficients are significantly dependent on the halo mass. For satellite galaxies, the correlation between FP$_*$ coefficients and the halo mass is weak. Conclusions. We conclude that the tilt of the FP is not primarily driven by the stellar population.