Herschel-ATLAS/GAMA:How does the far-IR luminosity function depend on galaxy group properties?

Abstract

We use the Herschel ATLAS (H-ATLAS) Phase I data to study the conditional luminosity function of far-IR (250 um) selected galaxies in optically-selected galaxy groups from the GAMA spectroscopic survey, as well as environmental effects on the far-IR-to-optical colour. We applied two methods, which gave consistent results for the far-IR conditional luminosity functions. The direct matching method matches H-ATLAS sources to GAMA/SDSS galaxies, then links the optical counterparts to GAMA groups. The stacking method counts the number of far-IR sources within the projected radii of GAMA groups, subtracting the local background. We investigated the dependence of the far-IR (250 um) luminosity function on group mass in the range 10d12 < M_h < 10d14Msun/h and on redshift in the range 0 < z < 0.4, using a sample of 3000 groups containing H-ATLAS sources with GAMA redshifts over an area of 126 sq. deg. We find that the characteristic 250 um luminosity, L^*(250), increases with group mass up to M_h ~ 10d13Msun/h, but is roughly constant above this, while it increases with redshift at high group masses, but less so at low masses. We also find that the group far-IR luminosity-to-mass ratio L(250)/M_h increases with redshift and is higher in low-mass groups. We estimate that around 70% of the 250 um luminosity density in the local universe is contributed by groups with M_h > 10d12Msun/h. We also find that the far-IR-to-optical colours of H-ATLAS galaxies are independent of group mass over the range 10d12 < M_h <10d14Msun/h in the local universe. We also compare our observational results with recent semi-analytical models, and find that none of these galaxy formation model can reproduce the conditional far-IR luminosity functions of galaxy groups.