Denser Environments Cultivate Larger Galaxies: A Comprehensive Study beyond the Local Universe with 3 Million Hyper Suprime-Cam Galaxies

TL;DR

This study reveals that galaxy size correlates with environmental density beyond the local universe, with denser regions hosting larger galaxies, a relationship confirmed with high confidence using a large, deep galaxy sample.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis of galaxy size-environment correlation beyond the local universe, utilizing a vastly larger and deeper dataset than previous studies.

Findings

Galaxies in denser environments are up to 25% larger than similar galaxies in less dense regions.

The correlation between galaxy size and environment varies with redshift, mass, and morphology.

The relationship is strongest at lower redshifts and weakens or disappears at z ≥ 0.5.

Abstract

The relationship between galaxy size and environment has remained enigmatic, with over a decade of conflicting results. We present one of the first comprehensive studies of the variation of galaxy radius with environment beyond the local Universe and demonstrate that large-scale environmental density is correlated with galaxy radius independent of stellar mass and galaxy morphology. We confirm with $>5\sigma$ confidence that galaxies in denser environments are up to $\sim25\%$ larger than their equally massive counterparts with similar morphology in less dense regions of the Universe. We achieve this result by correlating projected two-dimensional densities over $\sim360$ deg$^2$ with the structural parameters of $\sim3$ million Hyper Suprime-Cam galaxies at $0.3 \leq z < 0.7$ with $\log M/M_{\odot} \geq 8.9$. Compared to most previous studies, this sample is $\sim100-10,000$ times larger and goes $\sim1$ dex deeper in mass-completeness. We demonstrate that past conflicting results have been driven by small sample sizes and a lack of robust measurement uncertainties. We verify the presence of the above correlation separately for disk-dominated, bulge-dominated, star-forming, and quiescent subpopulations. We find the strength of the correlation to be dependent on redshift, stellar mass, and morphology. The correlation is strongest at lower redshifts and systematically weakens or disappears beyond $z \geq 0.5$. At $z\geq0.5$, more massive galaxies still display a statistically significant correlation. Although some existing theoretical frameworks can be selectively invoked to explain some of the observed correlations, our work demonstrates the need for more comprehensive theoretical investigations of the correlation between galaxy size and environment.