Bulge mass is king: The dominant role of the bulge in determining the
  fraction of passive galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
  We investigate the origin of galaxy bimodality by quantifying the relative
role of intrinsic and environmental drivers to the cessation (or `quenching')
of star formation in over half a million local Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)
galaxies. Our sample contains a wide variety of galaxies at z=0.02-0.2, with
stellar masses of 8 < log(M*/M_sun) < 12, spanning the entire morphological
range from pure disks to spheroids, and over four orders of magnitude in local
galaxy density and halo mass. We utilise published star formation rates and add
to this recent GIM2D photometric and stellar mass bulge + disk decompositions
from our group. We find that the passive fraction of galaxies increases steeply
with stellar mass, halo mass, and bulge mass, with a less steep dependence on
local galaxy density and bulge-to-total stellar mass ratio (B/T). At fixed
internal properties, we find that central and satellite galaxies have different
passive fraction relationships. For centrals, we conclude that there is less
variation in the passive fraction at a fixed bulge mass, than for any other
variable, including total stellar mass, halo mass, and B/T. This implies that
the quenching mechanism must be most tightly coupled to the bulge. We argue
that radio-mode AGN feedback offers the most plausible explanation of the
observed trends.
