Modelling the galaxy bimodality: shutdown above a critical halo mass

By A. Cattaneo, A. Dekel, J. Devriendt, B. Guiderdoni, Jérémy Blaizot. 2006

362 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We reproduce the blue and red sequences in the observed joint distribution of colour and magnitude for galaxies at low and high redshifts using hybrid N-body/semi-analytic simulations of galaxy formation. The match of model and data is achieved by mimicking the effects of cold flows versus shock heating coupled to feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGNs), as predicted by Dekel and Birnboim. After a critical epoch z ∼ 3, only haloes below a critical shock-heating mass M shock ∼ 10 12 Menjoy gas supply by cold flows and form stars, while cooling and star formation are shut down abruptly above this mass. The shock-heated gas is kept hot because being dilute it is vulnerable to feedback from energetic sources such as AGNs in their self-regulated mode. The shutdown explains in detail the bright-end truncation of the blue sequence at ∼L ∗, the appearance of luminous red-and-dead galaxies on the red sequence starting already at z ∼ 2, the colour bimodality, its strong dependence on environment density and its correlations with morphology and other galaxy properties. Before z ∼ 2-3, even haloes above the shock-heating mass form stars by cold streams penetrating through the hot gas. This explains the bright star forming galaxies at z ∼ 3-4, the early appearance of massive galaxies on the red sequence, the high cosmological star formation rate at high redshifts and the subsequent low rate at low redshifts.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/48b9e764234dea91894737843efd257822cb7c35

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. R. Dav'e
4. R. Somerville
5. A. Dekel
6. Volker Springel
7. C. Conroy
8. T. Naab

In Instrumentation

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. R. Dav'e
4. R. Somerville
5. A. Dekel
6. M. Cappellari
7. C. Conroy
8. T. Naab

Citations in the corpus

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• The importance of satellite quenching for the build-up of the red sequence of present-day galaxies (2007, background): “For instance, as advocated by Dekel & Birnboim (2006) and Cattaneo et al. (2006, 2008), the star formation of a 2 Note, though, that some red-sequence galaxies may be discs, especially at the faint end.”
• Spatially resolved spectroscopy of early-type galaxies over a range in mass (2007, background): “When this mechanism is introduced in cosmological models of galaxy formation, most massive galaxies form their stars at high redshift and in very short time-scales and then have assembled later mainly through dry-mergers (Cattaneo et al. 2006).”
• THE RISE AND FALL OF PASSIVE DISK GALAXIES: MORPHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION ALONG THE RED SEQUENCE REVEALED BY COSMOS (2009, background): “…Dekel & Birnboim 2006), has also been implemented in semi-analytic models, in which supposedly spheroidal merger remnants are kept “red and dead” by so-called “radio mode” active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback (Croton et al. 2006; Bower et al. 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2006; Somerville et al. 2008).”
• The colours of satellite galaxies in groups and clusters (2008, background): “The recent addition of feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the semi-analytic models (e.g., Granato et al. 2004; Bower et al. 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2006; Croton et al. 2006; Menci et al. 2006; Kang et al. 2006) has provided an explanation for three well-known, yet puzzling observational…”
• PRIMUS: CONSTRAINTS ON STAR FORMATION QUENCHING AND GALAXY MERGING, AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE STELLAR MASS FUNCTION FROM z = 0–1 (2013, background): “…2005; Dekel & Birnboim 2006), often in concert with so-called radio-mode feedback from an accreting active galactic nucleus (AGN; Croton et al. 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2006; Gabor et al. 2011); and internal, secular quenching due to disk or bar instabilities (Cole et al. 2000; Martig et al. 2009).”
• The morgana model for the rise of galaxies and active nuclei (2006, background): “…Wu, Fabian & Nulsen 2000; Granato et al. 2001; Hatton et al. 2003; Menci et al. 2004; Kang et al. 2005; Nagashima et al. 2005a; Bower et al. 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2006; De Lucia et al. 2006), where all the processes that take place in the formation of galaxies are taken into account with…”
• GRAVITATIONAL HEATING HELPS MAKE MASSIVE GALAXIES RED AND DEAD (2009, background): “The observed bimodality can be explained if star formation in halos above a critical threshold mass of M ∼ 1012M⊙ is suppressed (e.g. Bower et al. 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2006).”
• Jet-regulated cooling catastrophe (2010, background): “From both semi-analytic prescriptions (Bower et al. 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2006) and recent numerical simulations (Ruszkowski & Oh 2010; Duffy et al. 2010), it has become clear that AGN feedback must play a major role in reducing the central galaxy stellar mass in groups and clusters by a large…”
• METALLICITY-DEPENDENT QUENCHING OF STAR FORMATION AT HIGH REDSHIFT IN SMALL GALAXIES (2011, background): “This turns out to explain the evolution of the red sequence of galaxies (Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2006).”
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• On the prevalence of radio‐loud active galactic nuclei in brightest cluster galaxies: implications for AGN heating of cooling flows (2006, background): “…may therefore play a critical role in galaxy formation, preventing further cooling of gas on to elliptical galaxies and thus explaining why these galaxies are old and red (see also Benson et al. 2003; Scannapieco, Silk & Bouwens 2005; Bower et al. 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2006; Croton et al. 2006).”
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• The current status of galaxy formation (2012, background): “SAMs indeed demonstrate that AGN feedback is able to quench star formation in massive elliptical galaxies (Croton et al., 2006; Bower et al., 2006; Cattaneo et al., 2006; Somerville et al., 2008).”
• Environment and self-regulation in galaxy formation (2009, background): “…renditions of semi-analytic, hierarchical galaxy formation models include a prescription of AGN feedback (Cattaneo et al. 2005, 2007; Bower et al. 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2006; Croton et al. 2006; De Lucia et al. 2006; Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Cavaliere & Menci 2007; Monaco, Fontanot & Taffoni 2007).”
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