| Issue |
A&A
Volume 706, February 2026
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | A202 | |
| Number of page(s) | 21 | |
| Section | Extragalactic astronomy | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202557424 | |
| Published online | 10 February 2026 | |
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Deconstructing the galaxy stellar mass function by star formation and environment
1
Hamburger Sternwarte, Universität Hamburg Gojenbergsweg 112 21029 Hamburg, Germany
2
Cluster of Excellence Quantum Universe, Universität Hamburg Luruper Chaussee 149 22761 Hamburg, Germany
3
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), University of Western Australia Crawley WA 6009, Australia
4
Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology Hawthorn VIC 3122, Australia
★ Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Received:
26
September
2025
Accepted:
18
December
2025
Using the equatorial Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) dataset, we investigate how the low-redshift galaxy stellar mass function (GSMF) varies across different galaxy populations and as a function of halo mass. We find that: (i) the GSMF of passive and star-forming galaxies are well described by a double and a single Schechter function, respectively, although the inclusion of a second component for the star-forming population yields a more accurate description. Furthermore, star-forming galaxies dominate the low-mass end of the total GSMF, whereas passive galaxies mainly shape the intermediate-to-high-mass regime; (ii) the GSMF of central galaxies dominates the high-mass end, whereas satellites and ungrouped galaxies shape the intermediate-to-low-mass regime. Additionally, we find a relative increase in the abundance of low-mass galaxies moving from dense group environments to isolated systems; (iii) more massive halos host more massive galaxies, have a higher fraction of passive systems, and show a steeper decline in the number of intermediate-mass galaxies. Finally, our results reveal larger differences between passive and star-forming GSMFs than predicted by a phenomenological quenching model, but generally confirm the environmental quenching trends for central and satellite galaxies reported in other works.
Key words: galaxies: distances and redshifts / galaxies: evolution / galaxies: fundamental parameters / galaxies: luminosity function / mass function / galaxies: stellar content / large-scale structure of Universe
© The Authors 2026
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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