scholarly journals Galaxy evolution across environments as probed by the ages, stellar metallicities, and [α /Fe]  of central and satellite galaxies

2021 ◽  
Vol 502 (3) ◽  
pp. 4457-4478
Author(s):  
Anna R Gallazzi ◽  
A Pasquali ◽  
S Zibetti ◽  
F La Barbera

ABSTRACT We explore how the star formation and metal enrichment histories of present-day galaxies have been affected by environment combining stellar population parameter estimates and group environment characterization for SDSS DR7. We compare stellar ages, stellar metallicities, and crucially, element abundance ratios $\rm [\alpha /Fe]$ of satellite and central galaxies, as a function of their stellar and host group halo mass, controlling for the current star formation rate and for the infall epoch. We confirm that below M* ∼ 1010.5 M⊙ satellites are older and slightly metal richer than equally massive central galaxies. In contrast, we do not detect any difference in their $\rm [\alpha /Fe]$: $\rm [\alpha /Fe]$ depends primarily on stellar mass and not on group hierarchy nor host halo mass. We also find that the differences in the median age and metallicity of satellites and centrals at stellar mass below $\rm 10^{10.5}\,M_\odot$ are largely due to the higher fraction of passive galaxies among satellites and as a function of halo mass. We argue that the observed trends at low masses reveal the action of satellite-specific environmental effects in a ‘delayed-then-rapid’ fashion. When accounting for the varying quiescent fraction, small residual excess in age, metallicity and $\rm [\alpha /Fe]$ emerge for satellites dominated by old stellar populations and residing in haloes more massive than 1014 M⊙, compared to equally massive central galaxies. This excess in age, metallicity, and $\rm [\alpha /Fe]$ pertain to ancient infallers, i.e. satellites that have accreted on to the current halo more than 5 Gyr ago. This result points to the action of environment in the early phases of star formation in galaxies located close to cosmic density peaks.

2020 ◽  
Vol 498 (1) ◽  
pp. 430-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kartheik G Iyer ◽  
Sandro Tacchella ◽  
Shy Genel ◽  
Christopher C Hayward ◽  
Lars Hernquist ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Understanding the variability of galaxy star formation histories (SFHs) across a range of time-scales provides insight into the underlying physical processes that regulate star formation within galaxies. We compile the SFHs of galaxies at z = 0 from an extensive set of models, ranging from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations (Illustris, IllustrisTNG, Mufasa, Simba, EAGLE), zoom simulations (FIRE-2, g14, and Marvel/Justice League), semi-analytic models (Santa Cruz SAM) and empirical models (UniverseMachine), and quantify the variability of these SFHs on different time-scales using the power spectral density (PSD) formalism. We find that the PSDs are well described by broken power laws, and variability on long time-scales (≳1 Gyr) accounts for most of the power in galaxy SFHs. Most hydrodynamical models show increased variability on shorter time-scales (≲300 Myr) with decreasing stellar mass. Quenching can induce ∼0.4−1 dex of additional power on time-scales >1 Gyr. The dark matter accretion histories of galaxies have remarkably self-similar PSDs and are coherent with the in situ star formation on time-scales >3 Gyr. There is considerable diversity among the different models in their (i) power due to star formation rate variability at a given time-scale, (ii) amount of correlation with adjacent time-scales (PSD slope), (iii) evolution of median PSDs with stellar mass, and (iv) presence and locations of breaks in the PSDs. The PSD framework is a useful space to study the SFHs of galaxies since model predictions vary widely. Observational constraints in this space will help constrain the relative strengths of the physical processes responsible for this variability.


2020 ◽  
Vol 499 (1) ◽  
pp. 631-652
Author(s):  
J A Vázquez-Mata ◽  
J Loveday ◽  
S D Riggs ◽  
I K Baldry ◽  
L J M Davies ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT How do galaxy properties (such as stellar mass, luminosity, star formation rate, and morphology) and their evolution depend on the mass of their host dark matter halo? Using the Galaxy and Mass Assembly group catalogue, we address this question by exploring the dependence on host halo mass of the luminosity function (LF) and stellar mass function (SMF) for grouped galaxies subdivided by colour, morphology, and central/satellite. We find that spheroidal galaxies in particular dominate the bright and massive ends of the LF and SMF, respectively. More massive haloes host more massive and more luminous central galaxies. The satellites LF and SMF, respectively, show a systematic brightening of characteristic magnitude, and increase in characteristic mass, with increasing halo mass. In contrast to some previous results, the faint-end and low-mass slopes show little systematic dependence on halo mass. Semi-analytic models and simulations show similar or enhanced dependence of central mass and luminosity on halo mass. Faint and low-mass simulated satellite galaxies are remarkably independent of halo mass, but the most massive satellites are more common in more massive groups. In the first investigation of low-redshift LF and SMF evolution in group environments, we find that the red/blue ratio of galaxies in groups has increased since redshift z ≈ 0.3 relative to the field population. This observation strongly suggests that quenching of star formation in galaxies as they are accreted into galaxy groups is a significant and ongoing process.


2020 ◽  
Vol 637 ◽  
pp. A30
Author(s):  
J. M. Pérez-Martínez ◽  
B. Ziegler ◽  
A. Böhm ◽  
M. Verdugo

Aims. In order to understand the role of the different processes that drive galaxy evolution in clusters, we need comprehensive studies that simultaneously examine several of the most important physical properties of galaxies. In this work we study the interplay between the kinematic state and star formation activity of galaxies in the RXJ1347−1145 cluster complex at z ∼ 0.45. Methods. We used VLT/VIMOS to obtain slit spectra for 95 galaxies across the 40′ × 40′ area where the RXJ1347−1145 cluster complex resides. We determined the cluster membership of our targets by identifying one or more of the available emission lines within the wavelength range. Our spectroscopy is complemented with archival SUBARU/Suprime-Cam deep photometric observations in five optical bands (B, V, Rc, Ic, z′). We examined the kinematic properties of our sample attending to the degree of distortion of the extracted rotation curves. Regular rotating galaxies were included in our Tully–Fisher analysis while the distorted ones were used to study the role of cluster-specific interactions with respect to star formation and AGN activity. Results. Our analysis confirmed the cluster membership for approximately half of our targets. We report a higher fraction of galaxies with irregular gas kinematics in the cluster environment than in the field. Cluster galaxies with regular rotation display a moderate brightening in the B-band Tully–Fisher relation compatible with the gradual evolution of the stellar populations with lookback time, and no significant evolution in the stellar-mass Tully–Fisher relation, in line with previous studies at similar redshift. Average specific star formation rate values are slightly lower in our cluster sample (−0.15 dex) with respect to the main sequence of star-forming galaxies, confirming the role of the environment in the early quenching of star formation in clusters. Finally, we carried out an exploratory observational study on the stellar-to-halo mass relation finding that cluster galaxies tend to have slightly lower stellar mass values for a fixed halo mass compared to their field counterparts.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuki Yamaguchi ◽  
Kotaro Kohno ◽  
Bunyo Hatsukade ◽  
Tao Wang ◽  
Yuki Yoshimura ◽  
...  

Abstract We make use of the ALMA twenty-Six Arcmin2 survey of GOODS-S At One-millimeter (ASAGAO), deep 1.2 mm continuum observations of a 26-arcmin2 region in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey-South (GOODS-S) obtained with Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), to probe dust-enshrouded star formation in K-band selected (i.e., stellar mass selected) galaxies, which are drawn from the FourStar Galaxy Evolution Survey (ZFOURGE) catalog. Based on the ASAGAO combined map, which was created by combining ASAGAO and ALMA archival data in the GOODS-South field, we find that 24 ZFOURGE sources have 1.2 mm counterparts with a signal-to-noise ratio >4.5 (1σ ≃ 30–70 μJy beam−1 at 1.2 mm). Their median redshift is estimated to be $z$median = 2.38 ± 0.14. They generally follow the tight relationship of the stellar mass versus star formation rate (i.e., the main sequence of star-forming galaxies). ALMA-detected ZFOURGE sources exhibit systematically larger infrared (IR) excess (IRX ≡ LIR/LUV) compared to ZFOURGE galaxies without ALMA detections even though they have similar redshifts, stellar masses, and star formation rates. This implies the consensus stellar-mass versus IRX relation, which is known to be tight among rest-frame-ultraviolet-selected galaxies, cannot fully predict the ALMA detectability of stellar-mass-selected galaxies. We find that ALMA-detected ZFOURGE sources are the main contributors to the cosmic IR star formation rate density at $z$ = 2–3.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (S244) ◽  
pp. 127-135
Author(s):  
Jessica L. Rosenberg ◽  
John J. Salzer ◽  
John Cannon

AbstractBlind HI surveys provide a census of galaxies in the local universe that is unbiased by their optical properties. Even the Arecibo Dual-Beam Survey with a sample of only 265 galaxies discovered many low surface brightness galaxies and one galaxy with no obvious stellar component. Overall the galaxies in this survey display a diverse range of gas-to-stellar properties. The environment in which a galaxy resides is shown to be one of the factors responsible for this diversity, but it is not the only one. Clearly there are other factors affecting the complex processes responsible for the conversion of gas into stars rapidly in some galaxies, slowly in others, and rapidly in the center while slowly in the outskirts in still other galaxies. Nevertheless, even the inefficient star formation observed in a large fraction of the gas-rich galaxies appears to be a significant contributor to the overall star-formation rate density locally and therefore an important driver of galaxy evolution that must be understood. We focus on a discussion of the stellar and star formation properties in a 21 cm selected sample of galaxies because it is these measurements that contain the most information about the nature of star formation in galaxies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 493 (4) ◽  
pp. 4808-4815
Author(s):  
Shraddha Surana ◽  
Yogesh Wadadekar ◽  
Omkar Bait ◽  
Hrushikesh Bhosale

ABSTRACT Understanding the star formation properties of galaxies as a function of cosmic epoch is a critical exercise in studies of galaxy evolution. Traditionally, stellar population synthesis (SPS) models have been used to obtain best-fitting parameters that characterize star formation in galaxies. As multiband flux measurements become available for thousands of galaxies, an alternative approach to characterizing star formation using machine learning becomes feasible. In this work, we present the use of deep learning techniques to predict three important star formation properties – stellar mass, star formation rate, and dust luminosity. We characterize the performance of our deep learning models through comparisons with outputs from a standard SPS code.


2019 ◽  
Vol 492 (1) ◽  
pp. 1492-1512
Author(s):  
S Gillman ◽  
A L Tiley ◽  
A M Swinbank ◽  
C M Harrison ◽  
Ian Smail ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We present an analysis of the gas dynamics of star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 1.5 using data from the KMOS Galaxy Evolution Survey. We quantify the morphology of the galaxies using HSTcandels imaging parametrically and non-parametrically. We combine the H α dynamics from KMOS with the high-resolution imaging to derive the relation between stellar mass (M*) and stellar specific angular momentum (j*). We show that high-redshift star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 1.5 follow a power-law trend in specific stellar angular momentum with stellar mass similar to that of local late-type galaxies of the form j*  ∝  M$_*^{0.53\, \pm \, 0.10}$. The highest specific angular momentum galaxies are mostly disc-like, although generally both peculiar morphologies and disc-like systems are found across the sequence of specific angular momentum at a fixed stellar mass. We explore the scatter within the j* – M* plane and its correlation with both the integrated dynamical properties of a galaxy (e.g. velocity dispersion, Toomre Qg, H α star formation rate surface density ΣSFR) and its parametrized rest-frame UV / optical morphology (e.g. Sérsic index, bulge to total ratio, clumpiness, asymmetry, and concentration). We establish that the position in the j* – M* plane is strongly correlated with the star-formation surface density and the clumpiness of the stellar light distribution. Galaxies with peculiar rest-frame UV / optical morphologies have comparable specific angular momentum to disc- dominated galaxies of the same stellar mass, but are clumpier and have higher star formation rate surface densities. We propose that the peculiar morphologies in high-redshift systems are driven by higher star formation rate surface densities and higher gas fractions leading to a more clumpy interstellar medium.


Author(s):  
S Gillman ◽  
A L Tiley ◽  
A M Swinbank ◽  
U Dudzevičiūtė ◽  
R M Sharples ◽  
...  

Abstract We present an analysis of the chemical abundance properties of ≈650 star-forming galaxies at z ≈ 0.6 – 1.8. Using integral-field observations from the K - band Multi-Object Spectrograph (KMOS), we quantify the [N ii]/Hα emission-line ratio, a proxy for the gas-phase Oxygen abundance within the interstellar medium. We define the stellar mass – metallicity relation at z ≈ 0.6 – 1.0 and z ≈ 1.2 – 1.8 and analyse the correlation between the scatter in the relation and fundamental galaxy properties (e.g. Hα star-formation rate, Hα specific star-formation rate, rotation dominance, stellar continuum half-light radius and Hubble-type morphology). We find that for a given stellar mass, more highly star-forming, larger and irregular galaxies have lower gas-phase metallicities, which may be attributable to their lower surface mass densities and the higher gas fractions of irregular systems. We measure the radial dependence of gas-phase metallicity in the galaxies, establishing a median, beam smearing-corrected, metallicity gradient of ΔZ/ΔR= 0.002 ± 0.004 dex kpc−1, indicating on average there is no significant dependence on radius. The metallicity gradient of a galaxy is independent of its rest-frame optical morphology, whilst correlating with its stellar mass and specific star-formation rate, in agreement with an inside-out model of galaxy evolution, as well as its rotation dominance. We quantify the evolution of metallicity gradients, comparing the distribution of ΔZ/ΔR in our sample with numerical simulations and observations at z ≈ 0 – 3. Galaxies in our sample exhibit flatter metallicity gradients than local star-forming galaxies, in agreement with numerical models in which stellar feedback plays a crucial role redistributing metals.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (S359) ◽  
pp. 342-344
Author(s):  
J. H. Barbosa-Santos ◽  
G. B. Lima Neto

AbstractDust Obscured Galaxies (DOGs) are observed as far as the reionization epoch. Their cosmic density peaks together with the star formation rate. DOGs also rule the star formation in high stellar mass galaxies. In this work we used a chemodynamical model to evolve the amount of dust in galaxies. We ran forty models varying initial mass and both dust formation efficiency and dust production. We find that for high star formation rate systems the accretion dominates the dust evolution and it explains high-z DOGs. Low star formation rate systems are better suited to investigate dust production. Also, we find that a MDust/MGas versus MDust/M* diagram is a good tracer of galaxy evolution.


2021 ◽  
Vol 502 (1) ◽  
pp. 1051-1069
Author(s):  
Mohammadreza Ayromlou ◽  
Dylan Nelson ◽  
Robert M Yates ◽  
Guinevere Kauffmann ◽  
Malin Renneby ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We perform a comparison, object by object and statistically, between the Munich semi-analytical model, L-GALAXIES, and the IllustrisTNG hydrodynamical simulations. By running L-GALAXIES on the IllustrisTNG dark matter-only merger trees, we identify the same galaxies in the two models. This allows us to compare the stellar mass, star formation rate, and gas content of galaxies, as well as the baryonic content of subhaloes and haloes in the two models. We find that both the stellar mass functions and the stellar masses of individual galaxies agree to better than ${\sim} 0.2\,$dex. On the other hand, specific star formation rates and gas contents can differ more substantially. At z = 0, the transition between low-mass star-forming galaxies and high-mass quenched galaxies occurs at a stellar mass scale ${\sim} 0.5\,$dex lower in IllustrisTNG than that in L-GALAXIES. IllustrisTNG also produces substantially more quenched galaxies at higher redshifts. Both models predict a halo baryon fraction close to the cosmic value for clusters, but IllustrisTNG predicts lower baryon fractions in group environments. These differences are primarily due to differences in modelling feedback from stars and supermassive black holes. The gas content and star formation rates of galaxies in and around clusters and groups differ substantially, with IllustrisTNG satellites less star forming and less gas rich. We show that environmental processes such as ram-pressure stripping are stronger and operate to larger distances and for a broader host mass range in IllustrisTNG. We suggest that the treatment of galaxy evolution in the semi-analytic model needs to be improved by prescriptions that capture local environmental effects more accurately.


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