Observing correlations between dark matter accretion and galaxy growth: II. testing the impact of galaxy mass, star formation indicator, and neighbour colours

Abstract

A crucial question in galaxy formation is what role new accretion has in star formation. Theoretical models have predicted a wide range of correlation strengths between halo accretion and galaxy star formation. Previously, we presented a technique to observationally constrain this correlation strength for isolated Milky Way mass galaxies at z 0.12, based on the correlation between halo accretion and the density profile of neighbouring galaxies. By applying this technique to both observational data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and simulation data from the UniverseMachine, where we can test different correlation strengths, we ruled out positive correlations between dark matter accretion and recent star formation activity. In this work, we expand our analysis by (1) applying our technique separately to red and blue neighbouring galaxies, which trace different infall populations, (2) correlating dark matter accretion rates with Dn 4000 measurements as a longer-term quiescence indicator than instantaneous star-formation rates, and (3) analysing higher-mass isolated central galaxies with 1011.0 < M∗/M < 1011.5 out to z 0.18. In all cases, our results are consistent with non-positive correlation strengths with 85 per cent confidence, which is most consistent with models where processes such as gas recycling dominate star formation in massive z = 0 galaxies. © 2021 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.