THE ENVIRONMENTAL DEPENDENCE OF THE FRACTION OF ‘‘UNCONVENTIONAL’’ GALAXIES: RED LATE TYPES AND BLUE EARLY TYPES

Abstract

From the Main galaxy sample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6, we construct two volume-limited samples with the luminosity -20.0 {<=} M{sub r} {<=} -18.5 and -22.40 {<=} M{sub r} {<=} -20.16, respectively, to explore the environmental dependence of the fraction of 'unconventional' galaxies: red late types and blue early types. We use the density estimator within the distance to the fifth nearest neighbor, and construct two samples at both extremes of density and perform comparative studies between them for each volume-limited sample. Results of two volume-limited samples show the same conclusions: the fraction of red late-type galaxies rises considerably with increasing local density, and that one of the blue early-type galaxies declines substantially with increasing local density. In addition, we note that bluer galaxies preferentially are late types, but the red galaxies are not dominated by early types.