Overdensities of 0<z<3 COSMOS galaxies

Using the Voronoi tessellation method, we assign surface densities to a mass complete sample of quiescent and star-forming galaxies out to z~3. We show that at a fixed stellar mass, the median color of quiescent galaxies does not depend on their host environment out to z~3. We find that the number and stellar mass density of massive (>10^11^M_{sun}_) star-forming galaxies have not significantly changed since z~3, regardless of their environment.

However, for massive quiescent systems at lower redshifts (z<~1.3), we find a significant evolution in the number and stellar mass densities in denser environments compared to lower density regions. Our results suggest that the relation between stellar mass and local density is more fundamental than the color-density relation and that environment plays a significant role in quenching star-formation activity in galaxies at z<~1.