How do galaxies populate halos in extreme density environments? An analysis of the Halo Occupation Distribution in SDSS

TL;DR

This study investigates how galaxy populations and their distribution within dark matter halos vary in extreme density environments like cosmic voids and FVS, revealing significant differences from average field regions.

Contribution

It provides observational analysis of the halo occupation distribution in extreme environments using SDSS data, highlighting environment-dependent variations in galaxy populations.

Findings

HOD decreases by 50% inside voids compared to the field.

HOD increases by 40% inside FVS relative to the field.

Galaxy age distributions vary with environment and group mass.

Abstract

Recent works have shown that the properties of galaxy populations in dark matter halos vary with large-scale environments. These results suggest a variation in the halo occupation distribution (HOD) in extreme density environments. To analyse these effects, we identify cosmic voids and future virialised structures (FVS) in the SDSS-DR12 and estimate the HOD within these superstructures using group catalogues as dark matter halo proxies. Our goal is to use observational galaxy data to characterise the HOD within voids and FVS, explore the different properties of these galaxies populations and compare them with the general results outside these superstructures. Using a galaxy group catalogue we compute the HOD within both types of superstructures. We also study the dependence on the results on the main void and FVS properties. We also analysed the mean stellar age of the galaxies inside these regions. In all cases, we compare the results with those derived from the Field sample. Inside voids, we find a strong decrease in HOD concerning the Field results. The mean number of satellites fall to 50%. Inside FVS, the HOD shows a significant increase to the Field, with a 40% excess in the mean number of satellites. In both regions, the differences with respect to the Field increases for the extreme values of the density environments. We obtain no signs of variations related to intrinsic characteristics of voids and FVS. We find that the cumulative distribution of the mean age of stars of the central galaxy also varies in these regions. Finally, we explore the HOD for the 25% youngest (oldest) galaxies. We find that for the low-mass groups the youngest galaxies are only present inside voids. On the other hand, for the high-mass groups the FVS environments show the same increase in the HOD concerning the Field. We find that cosmic voids lack of oldest galaxies.