The Prevalence of Star-forming Clumps as a Function of Environmental Overdensity in Local Galaxies
At the peak of cosmic star formation (1 ≲ z ≲ 2), the majority of star-forming galaxies hosted compact, star-forming clumps, which were responsible for a large fraction of cosmic star formation. By comparison, ≲5% of local star-forming galaxies host comparable clumps. In this work, we investigate th...
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2025-01-01
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| Series: | The Astrophysical Journal |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad7119 |
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| author | Dominic Adams Hugh Dickinson Lucy Fortson Kameswara Mantha Vihang Mehta Jürgen Popp Claudia Scarlata Chris Lintott Brooke Simmons Mike Walmsley |
| author_facet | Dominic Adams Hugh Dickinson Lucy Fortson Kameswara Mantha Vihang Mehta Jürgen Popp Claudia Scarlata Chris Lintott Brooke Simmons Mike Walmsley |
| author_sort | Dominic Adams |
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| description | At the peak of cosmic star formation (1 ≲ z ≲ 2), the majority of star-forming galaxies hosted compact, star-forming clumps, which were responsible for a large fraction of cosmic star formation. By comparison, ≲5% of local star-forming galaxies host comparable clumps. In this work, we investigate the link between the environmental conditions surrounding local ( z < 0.04) galaxies and the prevalence of clumps in these galaxies. To obtain our clump sample, we use a Faster R-CNN object detection network trained on the catalog of clump labels provided by the Galaxy Zoo: Clump Scout project, then apply this network to detect clumps in approximately 240,000 Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies (originally selected for Galaxy Zoo 2). The resulting sample of 41,445 u -band bright clumps in 34,246 galaxies is the largest sample of clumps yet assembled. We then select a volume-limited sample of 9964 galaxies and estimate the density of their local environment using the distance to their projected fifth nearest neighbor. We find a robust correlation between environment and the clumpy fraction ( f _clumpy ) for star-forming galaxies (specific star formation rate, sSFR > 10 ^−2 Gyr ^−1 ) but find little to no relationship when controlling for galaxies’ sSFR or color. Further, f _clumpy increases significantly with sSFR in local galaxies, particularly above sSFR > 10 ^−1 Gyr ^−1 . We posit that a galaxy’s gas fraction primarily controls the formation and lifetime of its clumps, and that environmental interactions play a smaller role. |
| format | Article |
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| institution | Kabale University |
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| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
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| series | The Astrophysical Journal |
| spelling | doaj-art-2dda098172d345a1a2ebe49e39cadfcf2025-01-21T11:45:33ZengIOP PublishingThe Astrophysical Journal1538-43572025-01-01979211810.3847/1538-4357/ad7119The Prevalence of Star-forming Clumps as a Function of Environmental Overdensity in Local GalaxiesDominic Adams0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1939-5180Hugh Dickinson1Lucy Fortson2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1067-8558Kameswara Mantha3Vihang Mehta4https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7166-6035Jürgen Popp5Claudia Scarlata6https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9136-8876Chris Lintott7https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5578-359XBrooke Simmons8https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5882-3323Mike Walmsley9https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6408-4181School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USASchool of Physical Sciences, The Open University , Walton Hall, MK7 6AA Milton Keynes, UKSchool of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USASchool of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USAIPAC, Mail Code 314-6, California Institute of Technology , 1200 E California Blvd., Pasadena CA 91125, USASchool of Physical Sciences, The Open University , Walton Hall, MK7 6AA Milton Keynes, UKSchool of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USADepartment of Physics, University of Oxford , Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Rd., Oxford, OX1 3RH, UKDepartment of Physics, Lancaster University , Lancaster LA1 4YB, UKJodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Manchester , Oxford Rd., Manchester M13 9PL, UKAt the peak of cosmic star formation (1 ≲ z ≲ 2), the majority of star-forming galaxies hosted compact, star-forming clumps, which were responsible for a large fraction of cosmic star formation. By comparison, ≲5% of local star-forming galaxies host comparable clumps. In this work, we investigate the link between the environmental conditions surrounding local ( z < 0.04) galaxies and the prevalence of clumps in these galaxies. To obtain our clump sample, we use a Faster R-CNN object detection network trained on the catalog of clump labels provided by the Galaxy Zoo: Clump Scout project, then apply this network to detect clumps in approximately 240,000 Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies (originally selected for Galaxy Zoo 2). The resulting sample of 41,445 u -band bright clumps in 34,246 galaxies is the largest sample of clumps yet assembled. We then select a volume-limited sample of 9964 galaxies and estimate the density of their local environment using the distance to their projected fifth nearest neighbor. We find a robust correlation between environment and the clumpy fraction ( f _clumpy ) for star-forming galaxies (specific star formation rate, sSFR > 10 ^−2 Gyr ^−1 ) but find little to no relationship when controlling for galaxies’ sSFR or color. Further, f _clumpy increases significantly with sSFR in local galaxies, particularly above sSFR > 10 ^−1 Gyr ^−1 . We posit that a galaxy’s gas fraction primarily controls the formation and lifetime of its clumps, and that environmental interactions play a smaller role.https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad7119GalaxiesStar forming regionsStarburst galaxiesGalaxy evolutionGalaxy formationGalaxy structure |
| spellingShingle | Dominic Adams Hugh Dickinson Lucy Fortson Kameswara Mantha Vihang Mehta Jürgen Popp Claudia Scarlata Chris Lintott Brooke Simmons Mike Walmsley The Prevalence of Star-forming Clumps as a Function of Environmental Overdensity in Local Galaxies The Astrophysical Journal Galaxies Star forming regions Starburst galaxies Galaxy evolution Galaxy formation Galaxy structure |
| title | The Prevalence of Star-forming Clumps as a Function of Environmental Overdensity in Local Galaxies |
| title_full | The Prevalence of Star-forming Clumps as a Function of Environmental Overdensity in Local Galaxies |
| title_fullStr | The Prevalence of Star-forming Clumps as a Function of Environmental Overdensity in Local Galaxies |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Prevalence of Star-forming Clumps as a Function of Environmental Overdensity in Local Galaxies |
| title_short | The Prevalence of Star-forming Clumps as a Function of Environmental Overdensity in Local Galaxies |
| title_sort | prevalence of star forming clumps as a function of environmental overdensity in local galaxies |
| topic | Galaxies Star forming regions Starburst galaxies Galaxy evolution Galaxy formation Galaxy structure |
| url | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad7119 |
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