The variation of the galaxy luminosity function with group properties

Abstract

We explore the shape of the galaxy luminosity function (LF) in groups of different mass by creating composite LFs over large numbers of groups. Following previous work using total group luminosity as the mass indicator, here we split our groups by multiplicity and by estimated virial (group halo) mass, and consider red (passive) and blue (star-forming) galaxies separately. In addition, we utilize two different group catalogues (2PIGG and Yang et al.) in order to ascertain the impact of the specific grouping algorithm and further investigate the environmental effects via variations in the LF with position in groups. Our main results are that LFs show a steepening faint end for early-type galaxies as a function of group mass/multiplicity, with a much suppressed trend (evident only in high mass groups) for late-type galaxies. Variations between LFs as a function of group mass are robust irrespective of which grouping catalogue is used, and broadly speaking what method for determining group 'mass' is used. We find in particular that there is a significant deficit of low-mass passive galaxies in low-multiplicity groups, as seen in high-redshift clusters. Further to this, the variation in the LF appears to only occur in the central regions of systems, and in fact seems to be most strongly dependent on the position in the group relative to the virial radius. Finally, distance-rank magnitude relations were considered. Only the Yang groups demonstrated any evidence of a correlation between a galaxy's position relative to the brightest group member and its luminosity. 2PIGG possessed no such gradient, the conclusion being the friend-of-friend algorithm suppresses the signal for weak luminosity-position trends and the Yang grouping algorithm naturally enhances it. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS.