CANDELS Sheds Light on the Environmental Quenching of Low-mass Galaxies

We investigate the environmental quenching of galaxies, especially those with stellar masses (M-*) < 10(9.5) Me-circle dot, beyond the local universe. Essentially all local low-mass quenched galaxies (QGs) are believed to live close to massive central galaxies, which is a demonstration of environmental quenching. We use CANDELS data to test whether or not such a dwarf QG-massive central galaxy connection exists beyond the local universe. For this purpose, we only need a statistically representative, rather than complete, sample of low-mass galaxies, which enables our study to z greater than or similar to 1.5. For each low-mass galaxy, we measure the projected distance (d(proj)) to its nearest massive neighbor (M-* > 10(10.5) M-circle dot) within a redshift range. At a given z and M-*, the environmental quenching effect is considered to be observed if the d(proj) distribution of QGs (d(proj)(Q)) is significantly skewed toward lower values than that of star-forming galaxies (d(proj)(SF)). For galaxies with 10(8) M-circle dot < M-* < 10(10) M-circle dot, such a difference between d(proj)(Q) and d(proj)(SF) is detected up to z similar to 1. Also, about 10% of the quenched galaxies in our sample are located between two and four virial radii (R-Vir) of the massive halos. The median projected distance from low-mass QGs to their massive neighbors, d(proj)(Q)/R-Vir, decreases with satellite M-* at M-* less than or similar to 10(9.5) M-circle dot, but increases with satellite M-* at M-* greater than or similar to 10(9.5) M-circle dot. This trend suggests a smooth, if any, transition of the quenching timescale around M-* similar to 10(9.5) M-circle dot at 0.5 < z < 1.0.