And the Winner Is: Galaxy Mass

Abstract

Environment is known to affect the formation and evolution of galaxies considerably, and this is best visible through the well-known morphology–density relationship. We study the effect of environment on the evolution of early-type galaxies for a sample of 3,360 galaxies morphologically selected by visual inspection from the SDSS in the redshift range 0. 05 ≤ z ≤ 0. 06, and analyse luminosity-weighted age, metallicity, and α ∕ Fe ratio as function of environment and galaxy mass. We find that on average 10% of early-type galaxies are rejuvenated through minor recent star formation. This fraction increases with both decreasing galaxy mass and decreasing environmental density. However, the bulk of the population obeys a well-defined scaling of age, metallicity, and α ∕ Fe ratio with galaxy mass that is independent of environment. Our results contribute to the growing evidence in the recent literature that galaxy mass is the major driver of galaxy formation. Even the morphology–density relationship may actually be mass-driven, as the consequence of an environment dependent characteristic galaxy mass coupled with the fact that late-type galaxy morphologies are more prevalent in low-mass galaxies.