Local versus global environment: the suppression of star formation in the vicinity of galaxy clusters

TL;DR

This study investigates how star formation in galaxies is suppressed near clusters, revealing that local and global environments both influence galaxy quenching, with local density playing a significant role even beyond the cluster's virial radius.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the interplay between local and global environments affecting star formation suppression in galaxies around clusters, especially beyond the virial radius.

Findings

Star formation fraction decreases from the field out to 10R_{500} around clusters.

High-density local environments suppress star formation more effectively.

Global environment influences star formation independently of local density.

Abstract

In order to examine where, how and why the quenching of star formation begins in the outskirts of galaxy clusters, we investigate the de-projected radial distribution of a large sample of quenched and star-forming galaxies (SFGs) out to $30R_{500}$ around clusters. We identify the SFG sample using radio continuum emission from the Low-Frequency Array Two-metre Sky Survey. We find that the SFG fraction starts to decrease from the field fraction as far out as $10R_{500}$, well outside the virial radius of the clusters. We investigate how the SFG fraction depends on both large-scale and local environments, using radial distance from a cluster to characterise the former, and distance from 5th nearest neighbour for the latter. The fraction of SFGs in high-density local environments is consistently lower than that found in low-density local environments, indicating that galaxies' immediate surroundings have a significant impact on star formation. However, for high-mass galaxies -- and low mass galaxies to a lesser extent -- high-density local environments appear to act as a protective barrier for those SFGs that survived this pre-processing, shielding them from the external quenching mechanisms of the cluster outskirts. For those galaxies that are not in a dense local environment, the global environment causes the fraction of SFGs to decrease toward the cluster centre in a manner that is independent of galaxy mass. Thus, the fraction of SFGs depends on quite a complex interplay between the galaxies' mass, their local environment, and their more global cluster-centric distance.