COSMOS-Web galaxy groups: Evolution of red sequence and quiescent galaxy fraction
Greta Toni, Matteo Maturi, Gianluca Castignani, Lauro Moscardini, Ghassem Gozaliasl, Alexis Finoguenov, Sina Taamoli, B. Hollis Akins, C. Rafael Arango-Toro, M. Caitlin Casey, E. Nicole Drakos, L. Andreas Faisst, Carter Flayhart, Maximilien Franco, Fabrizio Gentile, Ali Hadi, Santosh Harish, Hossein Hatamnia, Olivier Ilbert, Shuowen Jin, S. Jeyhan Kartaltepe, Ali Ahmad Khostovan, M. Anton Koekemoer, Gavin Leroy, E. Georgios Magdis, Henry Joy McCracken, Jed McKinney, Louise Paquereau, Jason Rhodes, R. Michael Rich, E. Brant Robertson, M. Rasha Samir, Diana Scognamiglio, Samaneh Shamyati, Marko Shuntov, A. Jorge Zavala
Published: 2025/9/9
Abstract
We investigate the redshift and group richness dependence of the quiescent fraction and red-sequence (RS) parameters in COSMOS galaxy groups from z=0 to z=3.7. We analyzed the deep and well-characterized sample of groups detected with AMICO in the COSMOS(-Web) field. Our study of the quiescent galaxy population is based on a machine-learning classification tool based on rest-frame magnitudes. The algorithm learns from several traditional methods to estimate the probability of a galaxy being quiescent, achieving high precision and recall. Starting from this classification, we computed quiescent galaxy fractions within groups via two methods: one based on the membership probabilities provided by AMICO, which rely on an analytical model, and another using a model-independent technique. We then detected the RS by estimating the ridgeline position using photometric data, followed by sigma clipping to remove outliers. This analysis was performed using both rest-frame and observed-frame magnitudes with rest-frame matching. We compared the results from both approaches and investigated the $z$ and richness dependence of the RS parameters. We found that the quiescent galaxy population in groups builds up steadily from z=1.5-2 across all richnesses, with faster and earlier growth in the richest groups. The first galaxies settle onto the RS ridgeline by $z \sim 2$, consistent with current evolutionary scenarios. Notably, we reported a rare overdensity of quiescent galaxies at z=3.4, potentially one of the most distant early RSs observed. Extending our study to X-rays, we found that X-ray faint groups have, on average, lower quiescent fractions than X-ray bright ones, likely reflecting their typical location in filaments. Leveraging the broad wavelength coverage of COSMOS2025, we traced RS evolution over $\sim 12$ Gyr, finding no significant trends in either slope or scatter of the ridgeline.