Relationship between Environment and the Broadband Optical Properties of Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We examine the relationship between environment and the luminosities, surface brightnesses, colors, and profile shapes of luminous galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). For the SDSS sample, galaxy color is the galaxy property most predictive of the local environment. Galaxy color and luminosity—measures of the star formation history—jointly comprise the most predictive pair of properties. At fixed luminosity and color, density is not closely related to surface brightness or to Sérsic index—measures of galaxy structure. In the text, we discuss what measurable residual relationships exist, generally finding that at red colors and fixed luminosity, the mean density decreases at the highest surface brightnesses and Sérsic indices. In general, these results suggest that the structural properties of galaxies are less closely related to galaxy environment than are their masses and star formation histories.

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