The conformity of HI galaxies in ALFALFA-SDSS sample

TL;DR

This study investigates the conformity effect of HI galaxies in the ALFALFA-SDSS sample, revealing significant 5 Mpc-scale conformity influenced by stellar mass and confirming 1-halo conformity, thus offering insights into galaxy co-evolution.

Contribution

It provides new evidence of HI galaxy conformity at 5 Mpc scales and clarifies the roles of 1-halo and 2-halo effects in galaxy evolution models.

Findings

Significant conformity effect observed out to 5 Mpc.

Dependence of conformity strength on stellar mass.

Confirmation of 1-halo conformity in galaxy groups.

Abstract

The conformity effect, indicating the evolution of a galaxy is related to its surrounding neighbour galaxies as far as a few Mpc, is an interesting phenomenon in the modeling of galaxy and evolution. Here we study the conformity effect of HI galaxies in a matched galaxy sample between SDSS DR7 and ALFALFA surveys. By checking the probability difference for the detected HI galaxies as a function of distance around a normal or an HI galaxy, we find that this effect is significant out to 5 Mpc. It also shows a dependence on the stellar mass of galaxies, with the strength the strongest in the stellar mass range of 10^10~10^10.5. However, when the sample is confined to central galaxies in groups with virial radii smaller than 1 Mpc, the 1-halo conformity signal is still evident, while the 2-halo conformity signal is reduced to a very weak amplitude. Our results confirm the previous study in the optical band that the 2-halo term is possibly caused by the bias effect in the sample selection. Furthermore, we confirm the existence of the 1-halo conformity discovered in the optical and radio band in previous lectures. Our results provide another viewpoint of the conformity effect and hope to shed the light on the co-evolution of the galaxies and their neighbours in the current galaxy formation models.