The RESOLVE Survey Atomic Gas Census and Environmental Influences on Galaxy Gas Reservoirs
Abstract
We present the H I mass inventory for the REsolved Spectroscopy Of a Local VolumE (RESOLVE) survey, a volume-limited, multi-wavelength census of >1500 z = 0 galaxies spanning diverse environments and complete in baryonic mass down to dwarfs of ∼109 {M}⊙ . This first 21 cm data release provides robust detections or strong upper limits (1.4M H I < 5%-10% of stellar mass M *) for ∼94% of RESOLVE. We examine global atomic gas-to-stellar mass ratios (G/S) in relation to galaxy environment using several metrics: group dark matter halo mass M h, central/satellite designation, relative mass density of the cosmic web, and distance to the nearest massive group. We find that at fixed M *, satellites have decreasing G/S with increasing M h starting clearly at M h ∼ 1012 {M}⊙ , suggesting the presence of starvation and/or stripping mechanisms associated with halo gas heating in intermediate-mass groups. The analogous relationship for centrals is uncertain because halo abundance matching builds in relationships between central G/S, stellar mass, and halo mass, which depend on the integrated group property used as a proxy for halo mass (stellar or baryonic mass). On larger scales G/S trends are less sensitive to the abundance matching method. At fixed M h ≤ 1012 {M}⊙ , the fraction of gas-poor centrals increases with large-scale structure density. In overdense regions, we identify a rare population of gas-poor centrals in low-mass (M h < 1011.4 {M}⊙ ) halos primarily located within ∼1.5× the virial radius of more massive (M h > 1012 {M}⊙ ) halos, suggesting that gas stripping and/or starvation may be induced by interactions with larger halos or the surrounding cosmic web. We find that the detailed relationship between G/S and environment varies when we examine different subvolumes of RESOLVE independently, which we suggest may be a signature of assembly bias.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- DOI:
- 10.3847/0004-637X/832/2/126
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1610.06932
- Bibcode:
- 2016ApJ...832..126S
- Keywords:
-
- galaxies: evolution;
- galaxies: ISM;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- 24 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ, data tables available at http://resolve.astro.unc.edu/pages/database.php