The strong correlation between post-starburst fraction and environment

Abstract

We examine a magnitude limited (M<SUB>B</SUB> ≤ -18.7) sample of post-starburst (PSB) galaxies at 0.03 < z < 0.11 in the different environments from the spectroscopic data set of the Padova Millennium Galaxy Group Catalogue and compare their incidence and properties with those of passive (PAS) and emission line galaxies (EML). PSB galaxies have a quite precise lifetime (<1-1.5 Gyr), and they hold important clues for understanding galaxy evolution. While the properties (stellar mass, absolute magnitude, colour) of PSBs do not depend on environment, their frequency increases going from single galaxies to binary systems to groups, both considering the incidence with respect to the global number of galaxies and to the number of currently+recently star-forming galaxies. Including in our analysis, the sample of cluster PSBs drawn from the WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey presented in Paccagnella et al., we extend the halo mass range covered and present a coherent picture of the effect of the environment on galaxy transformations. We find that the PSB/(PSB + EML) fraction steadily increases with halo mass going from 1 per cent in 10^{11} M_{☉} haloes to ∼15 per cent in the most massive haloes (10^{15.5} M_{☉}). This provides evidence that processes specific to the densest environments, such as ram-pressure stripping, are responsible for a large fraction of PSB galaxies in dense environments. These processes act on a larger fraction of galaxies than alternative processes leading to PSB galaxies in the sparsest environments, such as galaxy interactions.