The Environment of Massive Quiescent Compact Galaxies at 0.1<z<0.4 in the COSMOS Field

الأصل · EN

We use Hectospec mounted on the 6.5-meter MMT to carry out a redshift survey of red (r-i>0.2, g-r>0.8, r<21.3) galaxies in the COSMOS field to measure the environments of massive compact quiescent galaxies at intermediate redshift. The >90% complete magnitude limited survey includes redshifts for 1766 red galaxies with r < 20.8 covering the central square degree of the field; 65% of the redshifts in this sample are new. We select a complete magnitude limited quiescent sample based on the rest-frame UVJ colors. When the density distribution is sampled on a scale of 2 Mpc massive compact galaxies inhabit systematically denser regions than the parent quiescent galaxy population. Non-compact quiescent galaxies with the same stellar masses as their compact counterparts populate a similar distribution of environments. Thus the massive nature of quiescent compacts accounts for the environment dependence and appears fundamental to their history.