Departmental Colloquium

Galaxies and their Host Environments: What we have learned from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Michael Blanton
New York University

Time
Wed. February 8, 2006     1:00 PM     Stirling C

Abstract

For decades, we have known that the galaxy population in dense regions, such as galaxy clusters, differs from that in the field, known as the morphology-density relationship. With new, large redshift surveys, we can ask revealing questions about this relationship that were not previously possible to answer. Here I address some of these questions and try to relate them to theories of galaxy formation. I show first that galaxy properties are related most closely to the masses of the groups to which they belong, not to the larger scale density field. Second, I show that the galaxy properties most directly affected are those related to the star-formation history: the color and luminosity. Other properties, such as the structure and size of a galaxy, are unrelated to environment for galaxies of similar star-formation history.

Refreshments will precede the talk at 12:30pm.

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