The dependence of galaxy clustering on tidal environment in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

TL;DR

This study examines how the Cosmic Web's tidal environment influences galaxy clustering in SDSS, finding strong correlations that are largely explained by halo mass, with minimal additional effects.

Contribution

It demonstrates that galaxy clustering dependence on tidal environment can be largely modeled by halo mass alone, challenging the need for additional environmental factors.

Findings

Clustering varies strongly with tidal anisotropy.

Halo mass-only models reproduce most observed trends.

Some differences in extreme environments suggest further effects.

Abstract

The influence of the Cosmic Web on galaxy formation and evolution is of great observational and theoretical interest. We investigate whether the Cosmic Web leaves an imprint in the spatial clustering of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), using the group catalog of Yang et al. and tidal field estimates at $\sim2h^{-1}$Mpc scales from the Mass-Tides-Velocity data set of Wang et al. We use the $\textit{tidal anisotropy}$ $\alpha$ (Paranjape et al.) to characterise the tidal environment of groups, and measure the redshift-space 2-point correlation function (2pcf) of group positions and the luminosity- and colour-dependent clustering of group galaxies using samples segregated by $\alpha$. We find that all the 2pcf measurements depend strongly on $\alpha$, with factors of $\sim20$ between the large-scale 2pcf of objects in the most and least isotropic environments. To test whether these strong trends imply `beyond halo mass' effects for galaxy evolution, we compare our results with corresponding 2pcf measurements in mock catalogs constructed using a halo occupation distribution that only uses halo mass as an input. We find that this prescription qualitatively reproduces $\textit{all}$ observed trends, and also quantitatively matches many of the observed results. Although there are some statistically significant differences between our `halo mass only' mocks and the data -- in the most and least isotropic environments -- which deserve further investigation, our results suggest that if the tidal environment induces additional effects on galaxy properties other than those inherited from their host halos, then these must be weak.