The Vimos VLT Deep Survey: Stellar mass segregation and large-scale
  galaxy environment in the redshift range 0.2<z<1.4
  Hierarchical models of galaxy formation predict that the properties of a dark
matter halo depend on the large-scale environment surrounding the halo. As a
result of this correlation, we expect massive haloes to be present in larger
number in overdense regions than in underdense ones. Given that a correlation
exists between a galaxy stellar mass and the hosting dark matter halo mass, the
segregation in dark matter halo mass should then result in a segregation in the
distribution of stellar mass in the galaxy population. In this work we study
the distribution of galaxy stellar mass and rest-frame optical color as a
function of the large-scale galaxy distribution using the VLT VIMOS Deep Survey
sample, in order to verify the presence of segregation in the properties of the
galaxy population. We use the VVDS redshift measurements and multi-band
photometric data to derive estimates of the stellar mass, rest-frame optical
color, and of the large-scale galaxy density, on a scale of approximately 8
Mpc, for a sample of 5619 galaxies in the redshift range 0.2<z<1.4. We observe
a significant mass and optical color segregation over the whole redshift
interval covered by our sample, such that the median value of the mass
distribution is larger and the rest-frame optical color is redder in regions of
high galaxy density. The amplitude of the mass segregation changes little with
redshift, at least in the high stellar mass regime that we can uniformely
sample over the 0.2<z<1.4 redshift interval. The color segregation, instead,
decreases significantly for z>0.7. However, when we consider only galaxies in
narrow bins of stellar mass, in order to exclude the effects of the stellar
mass segregation on the galaxy properties, we do not observe any more any
significant color segregation.
