A z=2.5 protocluster associated with the radio galaxy MRC 2104-242: star formation and differing mass functions in dense environments

We present results from a narrow-band survey of the field around the high redshift radio galaxy MRC 2104-242. We have selected Halpha emitters in a 7sq.arcmin field and compared the measured number density with that of a field sample at similar redshift. We find that MRC 2104-242 lies in an overdensity of galaxies that is 8.0 +/- 0.8 times the average density of a blank field, suggesting it resides in a large-scale structure that may eventually collapse to form a massive cluster. We find that there is more dust obscured star formation in the protocluster galaxies than in similarly selected control field galaxies and there is tentative evidence of a higher fraction of starbursting galaxies in the denser environment. However, on average we do not find a difference between the star formation rate (SFR)-mass relations of the protocluster and field galaxies and so conclude that the SFR of these galaxies at z~2.5 is governed predominantly by galaxy mass and not the host environment. We also find that the stellar mass distribution of the protocluster galaxies is skewed towards higher masses and there is a significant lack of galaxies at M < 10^10Msun within our small field of view. Based on the level of overdensity we expect to find ~22 star forming galaxies below 10^10Msun in the protocluster and do not detect any. This lack of low mass galaxies affects the level of overdensity which we detect. If we only consider high mass (M > 10^10.5Msun) galaxies, the density of the protocluster field increases to ~55 times the control field density.