Evolution of density profiles in high-z galaxies: compaction and quenching inside-out
By S. Tacchella, A. Dekel, C. Carollo, D. Ceverino, Colin Degraf, S. Lapiner, Nir Mandelker, Joel R. Primack. 2015
186 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Using cosmological simulations, we address the interplay between structure and star formation in high-redshift galaxies via the evolution of surface density profiles. Our sample consists of 26 galaxies evolving in the redshift range $z=7-1$, spanning the stellar mass range $(0.2-6.4)\times 10^{10}M_\odot$ at $z=2$. We recover the main trends by stacking the profiles in accordance to their evolution phases. Following a wet compaction event that typically occurs when the stellar mass is $\sim10^{9.5}~M_{\odot}$ at $z\sim2-4$, the gas develops a cusp inside the effective radius, associated with a peak in star-formation rate (SFR). The SFR peak and the associated feedback, in the absence of further gas inflow to the centre, marks the onset of gas depletion from the central 1 kpc, leading to quenching of the central SFR. An extended, star-forming ring that forms by fresh gas during the central quenching process shows as a rising specific SFR (sSFR) profile, which is interpreted as inside-out quenching. Before quenching, the stellar density profile grows self-similarly, maintaining its log-log shape because the sSFR is similar at all radii. During the quenching process, the stellar density saturates to a constant value, especially in the inner 1 kpc. The stellar mass and SFR profiles deduced from observations show very similar shapes, consistent with the scenario of wet compaction leading to inside-out quenching and the subsequent saturation of a dense stellar core. We predict a cuspy gas profile during the blue nugget phase, and a gas-depleted core, sometimes surrounded by a ring, in the post-blue nugget phase.
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2015a5b08d044283b465bf71436d09eb4329d68a
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Citations in the corpus
- The COSMOS2015 galaxy stellar mass function . Thirteen billion years of stellar mass assembly in ten snapshots (2017, background): “…we simply remark that a similar morphological transformation, characterised by an “inside-out” quenching and bulge growth, is expected to begin at z ' 2.5 (according to recent simulations as Tacchella et al. 2016), that is, the epoch when we observe a secondary low-z component emerge in the SMF.”
- Cool outflows in galaxies and their implications (2020, background): “109 yrs) inside-out cessation (“quenching”) of star formation in massive galaxies (Schawinski et al. 2014; Onodera et al. 2015; Tacchella et al. 2015, 2016; Spilker et al. 2019).”
- A unified model for galactic discs: star formation, turbulence driving, and mass transport (2017, background): “…∼0.1–0.3 virial radii, which is ∼10 times the stellar scale length (Danovich et al. 2015), though there are exceptions associated with loss of angular momentum by counter-rotating streams and major mergers, which tend to trigger ‘compaction’ events (Zolotov et al. 2015; Tacchella et al. 2016a,b).”
- The SINS/zC-SINF Survey of z ∼ 2 Galaxy Kinematics: SINFONI Adaptive Optics–assisted Data and Kiloparsec-scale Emission-line Properties (2018, background): “…removal of gas via powerful nuclear outflows (Förster Schreiber et al. 2014; Genzel et al. 2014b, see also Cano-Dı́az et al. 2012; Cresci et al. 2015; Brusa et al. 2015, 2016; Perna et al. 2015; Carniani et al. 2016), or central gas consumption (e.g., Tacchella et al. 2016; Tadaki et al. 2017).”