Citation:
Date Published:
July 1, 2006Abstract:
We investigate the relationship between the colors, luminosities, andenvironments of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectroscopicsample, using environmental measurements on scales ranging from 0.2 to 6h-1 Mpc. We find that (1) the relationship between color andenvironment persists even to the lowest luminosities we probe(Mr-5log10h~-14) (2) at luminosities and colors for which thegalaxy correlation function has a large amplitude, it also has a steepslope; and (3) in regions of a given overdensity on small scales (1h-1 Mpc), the overdensity on large scales (6 h-1Mpc) does not appear to relate to the recent star formation history ofthe galaxies. Of these results, the last has the most immediateapplication to galaxy formation theory. In particular, it lends supportto the notion that a galaxy's properties are related only to the mass ofits host dark matter halo, and not to the larger scale environment.Based on observations obtained with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.