Angular momentum in MAGIC. I. Environment

DOI

At intermediate redshift, galaxy groups/clusters are thought to impact galaxy properties such as their angular momentum. We investigate whether the environment has an impact on the galaxies' stellar angular momentum and identify underlying driving physical mechanisms. We derive robust estimates of the stellar angular momentum using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images combined with spatially resolved ionised gas kinematics from the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) for a sample of ~200 galaxies in groups and in the field at z~0.7 drawn from the MAGIC survey. Using various environmental tracers, we study the position of the galaxies in the the angular momentum-stellar mass (Fall) relation as a function of environment. We measure a 0.12dex (2{sigma} significant) depletion of stellar angular momentum for low-mass galaxies (M*<10^10^M_{sun}_) located in groups with respect to the field. Massive galaxies located in dense environments have less angular momentum than expected from the low-mass Fall relation but, without a comparable field sample, we cannot infer whether this effect is mass- or environmentally-driven. Furthermore, these massive galaxies are found in the central parts of the structures and have low systemic velocities. The observed depletion of angular momentum at low stellar mass does not appear linked with the strength of the over-density around the galaxies but it is strongly correlated with (i) the systemic velocity of the galaxies normalised by the dispersion of their host group and (ii) their ionised gas velocity dispersion. Galaxies in groups appear depleted in angular momentum, especially at low stellar mass. Our results suggest that this depletion might be induced by physical mechanisms that scale with the systemic velocity of the galaxies (e.g. stripping or merging) and that such mechanism might be responsible for enhancing the velocity dispersion of the gas as galaxies lose angular momentum.

Cone search capability for table J/A+A/677/A143/tablee1 (Parameters for the kinematics sample)

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.36770143
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/677/A143
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/677/A143
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/677/A143
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/677/A143
Provenance
Creator Mercier W.; Epinat B.; Contini T.; Krajnovic D.; Ciesla L.; Lemaux B.C.,Abril-Melgarejo V.; Boogaard L.; Pelliccia D.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2023
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Galactic and extragalactic Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics