Galaxy quenching across the Cosmic Web: disentangling mass and environment with SDSS DR18

TL;DR

This study examines how large-scale cosmic web environments influence galaxy quenching, revealing that environment and mass jointly affect star formation cessation and morphological changes.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of galaxy quenching across different cosmic web environments using SDSS DR18 data, highlighting the interplay between environment, mass, and galaxy evolution.

Findings

Quenched fraction increases with stellar mass and environment density.

A transition from environment-driven to mass-driven quenching occurs around log(M*/M_sun) ~ 10.6.

Massive galaxies in sheets can retain gas and continue star formation, diverging from cluster counterparts.

Abstract

We investigate the influence of large-scale cosmic web environments on galaxy quenching using a volume-limited, stellar mass-matched galaxy sample from SDSS DR18. Galaxies are classified as residing in sheets, filaments, or clusters based on the eigenvalues of the tidal tensor derived from the smoothed density field. The quenched fraction increases with stellar mass and is highest in clusters, intermediate in filaments, and lowest in sheets, reflecting the increasing efficiency of environmental quenching with density. A flattening of the quenched fraction beyond $\log_{10}(M_\star/M_\odot) \sim 10.6$ across all environments signals a transition from environment-driven to mass-driven quenching. In contrast, the bulge fraction continues to rise beyond this threshold, indicating a decoupling between star formation suppression and morphological transformation. At the high-mass end ($\log_{10}(M_\star/M_\odot) \gtrsim 11.5$), both quenched and bulge fractions bifurcate, increasing in clusters but declining in sheets, suggesting a divergent evolutionary pathway where massive galaxies in sheets retain cold gas and disk-like morphologies, potentially sustaining or rejuvenating star formation. The AGN fraction also increases with stellar mass and is somewhat higher in sheets than in clusters, indicating enhanced AGN activity in low-density, gas-rich environments. The high-mass trends are independently corroborated by our analysis of specific star formation rate, $(u-r)$ colour, concentration index, and D4000 in the stellar mass-density plane, which show that massive galaxies in sheets remain bluer, younger, more star-forming, and structurally less evolved than their cluster counterparts. Our results highlight the cosmic web as an active driver of galaxy evolution.