GAMA: The effect of environment on galaxy emission line properties

Abstract

Abstract. We study the influence of environment on emission line properties using the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, taking care to disentangle the role of mass and environment. We look at the role of local density separating galaxies into classifications star forming, AGN, and SF/AGN composite using the BPT diagnostic diagram. We find that environment is generally less important as a driving factor than galaxy mass. The presence of emission lines, whether driven by star formation or central supermassive black hole activity mostly depends on galaxy mass consistently for all galaxy types.