Comparison of some properties of star forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei between two BOSS galaxy samples from SDSS DR9

Abstract

Using the LOWZ and CMASS samples of the ninth data release (DR9) from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), I investigate properties of star forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The CMASS sample seriously suffers from the radial selection effect, even within the redshift 0.44 ≤ z ≤ 0.6, which will likely lead to statistical conclusions in the CMASS sample being less robust. In the LOWZ sample, the fraction of star-forming galaxies is nearly constant from the least dense regime to the densest regime; the AGN fraction is also insensitive to the local environment. In addition, I note that in the LOWZ sample, the distributions of stellar mass and stellar velocity dispersion for star forming galaxies and AGNs are nearly the same. © 2014 National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences and IOP Publishing Ltd.