Environments of Galaxies and Their Effects on Galaxy Properties

In the history of universe, galaxies are consistently affected by surrounding medium and neighbor galaxies. These effects control galaxy evolution, making properties of galaxies diverse and dependent on environments. We investigate environments of various types of galaxies and how they affect galaxy properties, such as bar structures and galaxy sizes, etc. First, we present the observational evidence that bars can form from a cluster-cluster interaction. The evidence indicates that bars can form due to a large-scale violent phenomenon, and cluster-cluster interaction should be considered as an important channel for bar formation. Second, we discover for the first time that local early-type galaxies heavier than 1011.2 Msol show a clear environmental dependence in mass-size relation, in such a way that galaxies are as much as 20 - 40% larger in densest environments than in underdense environments. This result suggests that mergers played a significant role in the growth of massive galaxies in dense environments as expected in theory. Lastly, we investigate environments of the most massive galaxies and extremely massive quasars. By doing so, we find that massive galaxies are a much better signpost for galaxy clusters than massive quasars.