The Conditional Colour-Magnitude Distribution: I. A Comprehensive Model of the Colour-Magnitude-Halo Mass Distribution of Present-Day Galaxies

TL;DR

This paper develops a detailed model of galaxy colour and luminosity distribution conditioned on halo mass, revealing the underlying bimodal colour distribution driven by galaxy type and luminosity, with implications for galaxy formation theories.

Contribution

The paper introduces a comprehensive CCMD model that decomposes galaxy colour-magnitude distributions into two populations and fits them to SDSS data, providing new insights into galaxy-halo connections.

Findings

Bimodality driven mainly by central galaxies at high luminosity.

Pseudo-blue and pseudo-red populations have distinct properties and correlations.

Redder and fainter galaxies have higher satellite fractions.

Abstract

We formulate a model of the conditional colour-magnitude distribution (CCMD) to describe the distribution of galaxy luminosity and colour as a function of halo mass. It consists of two populations of different colour distributions, dubbed pseudo-blue and pseudo-red, respectively, with each further separated into central and satellite galaxies. We define a global parameterization of these four colour-magnitude distributions and their dependence on halo mass, and we infer parameter values by simultaneously fitting the space densities and auto-correlation functions of 79 galaxy samples from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey defined by fine bins in the colour-magnitude diagram (CMD). The model deprojects the overall galaxy CMD, revealing its tomograph along the halo mass direction. The bimodality of the colour distribution is driven by central galaxies at most luminosities, though at low luminosities it is driven by the difference between blue centrals and red satellites. For central galaxies, the two pseudo-colour components are distinct and orthogonal to each other in the CCMD: at fixed halo mass, pseudo-blue galaxies have a narrow luminosity range and broad colour range, while pseudo-red galaxies have a narrow colour range and broad luminosity range. For pseudo-blue centrals, luminosity correlates tightly with halo mass, while for pseudo-red galaxies colour correlates more tightly (redder galaxies in more massive haloes). The satellite fraction is higher for redder and for fainter galaxies, with colour a stronger indicator than luminosity. We discuss the implications of the results and further applications of the CCMD model.