The influence of environment in the formation of lenticular galaxies

Lenticular galaxies (S0s) are believed to form through 2 main pathways: mergers or fading of a spiral progenitor. It is not clear yet what is the dominant scenario, nor what are the parameters and physical conditions that favor one path instead of the other. In a pilot study with 21 galaxies (Coccato et al. 2020), we suggest that environment (field of cluster) plays a role in the formation of S0s: S0s in the field are most likely formed through mergers, whereas S0s in clusters are most likely formed through processes that involve the rapid consumption of gas (e.g. starvation, ram pressure stripping) from a spiral progenitor. In this talk I will review the latest findings on this topic and present the results of a larger survey aimed at determining the role of environment in the formation of S0s