Bursting and quenching in massive galaxies without major mergers or AGNs

By Y. Birnboim, A. Dekel, E. Neistein. 2007

163 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We simulate the build-up of galaxies by spherical gas accretion through dark matter haloes, subject to the development of virial shocks. We find that a uniform cosmological accretion rate turns into a rapidly varying disc build-up rate. The generic sequence of events (Shocked-Accretion Massive Burst and Shutdown, SAMBA) consists of four distinct phases: (i) continuous cold accretion while the halo is below a threshold mass M sh ∼ 10 12 M O , (ii) tentative quenching of gas supply for ∼2 Gyr, starting abruptly once the halo is ∼M sh and growing a rapidly expanding shock, (iii) a massive burst due to the collapse of ∼10 11 M O gas in ∼0.5 Gyr, when the accumulated heated gas cools and joins new infalling gas and (iv) a long-term shutdown, enhanced by a temporary shock instability in late SAMBAs, those that quench at z ∼ 2, burst at z ∼ and end up quenched in 10 12-13 M O haloes today. The quenching and bursting occur at all redshifts in galaxies of baryonic mass ∼1011 M O and involve a substantial fraction of this mass. They arise from rather smooth accretion, or minor mergers, which, unlike major mergers, may leave the disc intact while being built in a rapid pace. The early bursts match observed maximum starbursting discs at z ≥ 2, predicted to reside in ≤10 13 M O haloes. The late bursts resemble discy luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) at z ≤ 1. On the other hand, the tentative quenching gives rise to a substantial population of ∼10 11 M O galaxies with a strongly suppressed star formation rate at z ∼ 1-3. The predicted long-term shutdown leads to red and dead galaxies in groups. A complete shutdown in more massive clusters requires an additional quenching mechanism, as may be provided by clumpy accretion. Alternatively, the SAMBA bursts may trigger the active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity that couples to the hot gas above M sh and helps the required quenching. The SAMBA phenomenon is predicted based on a spherical model that does not simulate star formation and feedback - it is yet to be investigated using detailed cosmological simulations.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/82f456ba3a287e0fa2e2f316ed8c15ef3ce26ce6

How researchers see this paper

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

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

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

1. Richard S. Ellis
2. P. Hopkins
3. A. Dekel
4. P. Oesch
5. J. Dunlop
6. M. Franx
7. I. Labbé
8. P. V. van Dokkum

In Instrumentation

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

Citations in the corpus

• Structure and Star Formation in Galaxies out to z = 3: Evidence for Surface Density Dependent Evolution and Upsizing (2008, background): “…reason, gas accretion and star formation are shut off for high density galaxies, either due to AGN (e.g., Croton et al. 2006, Bower et al. 2006), or heating of the gas due to shocks occurring naturally in massive, forming galaxies (Dekel & Birnboim 2006, Birnboim et al. 2007, Naab et al. 2007).”
• AN EMPIRICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF EXTENDED COOL GAS AROUND GALAXIES USING Mg ii ABSORPTION FEATURES (2010, background): “…semi-analytic model already produces unique empirical constraints for contemporary theoretical models that study he gas content of dark matter halos (e.g. Mo & Miralda-Escudé 1996; Birnboim & Dekel 2003; Maller & Bullock 2004; Kereš et al. 2005; 2009; Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Birnboim et al. 2007).”
• From Rings to Bulges: Evidence for Rapid Secular Galaxy Evolution at z ~ 2 from Integral Field Spectroscopy in the SINS Survey (2008, methodology): “From a statistical analysis of the Millenium dark matter simulation (Springel et al. 2005), Genel et al. (2008; see also Birnboim et al. 2007) derive a fitting formula for the average accretion timescale of dark matter as a function of z(t) and halo mass Mh, tacc(z;Mh)h i ¼ 2:27 ; 109 1þ z 3:2 2:2…”
• Lyα COOLING EMISSION FROM GALAXY FORMATION (2010, methodology): “Birnboim & Dekel (2003) carried out a stability analysis, supported by one-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations (see also Birnboim et al. 2007; Dekel & Birnboim 2006), and found that when the radiative cooling is efficient compared with the infall rate, the post-shock gas becomes unstable and…”
• Bimodal gas accretion in the Horizon–MareNostrum galaxy formation simulation (2008, result): “We also agree with a quasi constant Mshock as found by Kereš et al. (2005) and Birnboim et al. (2007) in SPH simulations, although the absolute normalization seems to differ.”
• Kinemetry of SINS High-Redshift Star-Forming Galaxies: Distinguishing Rotating Disks from Major Mergers (2008, methodology): “In addition, the baryons themselves can also constrain formation and evolution scenarios, by probing whether the active star formation seen in these objects is triggered bymajor mergers (e.g., Hopkins et al. 2006) or by smooth accretion (Birnboim et al. 2007).”
• FORMATION OF MASSIVE GALAXIES AT HIGH REDSHIFT: COLD STREAMS, CLUMPY DISKS, AND COMPACT SPHEROIDS (2009, background): “The common late disks form predominantly in halos below the threshold mass of ∼ 1012M⊙, and not necessarily by narrow streams (Birnboim & Dekel 2003; Binney 2004; Kereš et al. 2005; Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Birnboim et al. 2007).”
• Observational evidence for AGN feedback in early-type galaxies (2007, background): “Note that alternatives have been suggested based on the processes of cooling and shock-heating of baryonic matter in dark matter haloes (Birnboim et al. 2007; Khochfar & Ostriker 2007; Hopkins et al. 2007).”
• BULGE GROWTH AND QUENCHING SINCE z = 2.5 IN CANDELS/3D-HST (2014, background): “Naively, a different, less scattered behavior would be expected if halo mass quenching were the sole and dominant mechanism (Birnboim et al. 2007; Dekel & Birnboim 2008; Dekel et al. 2009).”
• THE IMPACT OF COLD GAS ACCRETION ABOVE A MASS FLOOR ON GALAXY SCALING RELATIONS (2009, methodology): “Indeed, the smoothness of this transition near Mmax can be derived from hydrodynamical simulations (Kereš et al. 2005; Birnboim et al. 2007; Ocvirk et al. 2008; Kereš et al. 2009).”
• MORPHOLOGICAL QUENCHING OF STAR FORMATION: MAKING EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES RED (2009, background): “…Revaz et al. 2008), (ii) heating by virial shocks of gas infalling in a massive dark matter halo (Birnboim & Dekel 2003; Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Birnboim et al. 2007; Cattaneo et al. 2008; Ocvirk et al. 2008; Kereš et al. 2009), (iii) energy feedback from an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN),…”
• The confinement of star-forming galaxies into a main sequence through episodes of gas compaction, depletion and replenishment (2015, background): “…rate into dark matter haloes, which scales as ∝ (1 + z)2.5 at a fixed mass in the Einstein-deSitter regime, valid at z > 1 (Neistein et al. 2006; Birnboim et al. 2007; Neistein & Dekel 2008; Fakhouri & Ma 2009; Genel et al. 2010; Dutton et al. 2010; Bouché et al. 2010; Tacchella et al. 2013;…”
• A LARGE POPULATION OF MASSIVE COMPACT POST-STARBURST GALAXIES AT z > 1: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SIZE EVOLUTION AND QUENCHING MECHANISM OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES (2011, background): “…available gas is exhausted from supernovae winds or Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) feedback (e.g., Croton et al. 2006; Hopkins et al. 2006), shock heating in massive halos (Birnboim et al. 2007; Yan et al. 2009), or cold streams resulting in clump migration and coalescence (e.g., Dekel et al. 2009b).”