AKARI Observation of the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) Supercluster at z = 0.087: Mid-infrared View of Transition Galaxies

Abstract

We present the mid-infrared (MIR) properties of galaxies within a supercluster in the north ecliptic pole region at z ~ 0.087 observed with the AKARI satellite. We use data from the AKARI NEP-Wide (5.4 deg^2) IR survey and the CLusters of galaxies EVoLution studies (CLEVL) mission program. We show that near-IR (3 μm)-mid-IR (11 μm) color can be used as an indicator of the specific star formation rate and the presence of intermediate-age stellar populations. From the MIR observations, we find that red-sequence galaxies consist not only of passively evolving red early-type galaxies, but also of (1) "weak-SFGs" (disk-dominated star-forming galaxies that have star formation rates lower by ~4 × than blue-cloud galaxies) and (2) "intermediate-MXGs" (bulge-dominated galaxies showing stronger MIR dust emission than normal red early-type galaxies). These two populations can be a set of transition galaxies from blue, star-forming, late-type galaxies evolving into red, quiescent, early-type ones. We find that the weak-SFGs are predominant at intermediate masses (10^(10) M_☉ < M_* < 10^(10.5) M_☉) and are typically found in local densities similar to the outskirts of galaxy clusters. As much as 40% of the supercluster member galaxies in this mass range can be classified as weak-SFGs, but their proportion decreases to <10% at larger masses (M_* > 10^(10.5) M_☉) at any galaxy density. The fraction of the intermediate-MXG among red-sequence galaxies at 10^(10) M_☉ < M_* < 10^(11) M_☉ also decreases as the density and mass increase. In particular, ~42% of the red-sequence galaxies with early-type morphologies are classified as intermediate-MXGs at intermediate densities. These results suggest that the star formation activity is strongly dependent on the stellar mass, but that the morphological transformation is mainly controlled by the environment.