A LARGE POPULATION OF MASSIVE COMPACT POST-STARBURST GALAXIES AT z > 1: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SIZE EVOLUTION AND QUENCHING MECHANISM OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES

By K. Whitaker, M. Kriek, P. V. van Dokkum, R. Bezanson, G. Brammer, M. Franx, I. Labbé. 2011

149 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the growth of the red sequence through the number density and structural evolution of a sample of young and old quiescent galaxies at 0 < z < 2. The galaxies are selected from the NEWFIRM Medium-Band Survey in the Cosmic Evolution Survey field. We find a large population of massive young recently quenched (“post-starburst”) galaxies at z > 1 that are almost non-existent at z < 1; their number density is 5 × 10−5 Mpc−3 at z = 2, whereas it is a factor of 10 less at z = 0.5. The observed number densities of young and old quiescent galaxies at z > 1 are consistent with a simple model in which all old quiescent galaxies were once identified as post-starburst galaxies. We find that the overall population of quiescent galaxies have smaller sizes and slightly more elongated shapes at higher redshift, in agreement with other recent studies. Interestingly, the most recently quenched galaxies at 1 < z < 2 are not larger, and possibly even smaller, than older galaxies at those redshifts. This result is inconsistent with the idea that the evolution of the average size of quiescent galaxies is largely driven by continuous transformations of larger, star-forming galaxies: in that case, the youngest quiescent galaxies would also be the largest. Instead, mergers or other mechanisms appear to be required to explain the size growth of quiescent galaxies from z = 2 to the present.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9d8dabb65b33abf2038c7396f84c020993855d7e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. L. Hernquist
2. P. Hopkins
3. R. Dav'e
4. P. V. van Dokkum
5. R. Somerville
6. Volker Springel
7. A. Dekel
8. C. Conroy

In Instrumentation

1. L. Hernquist
2. P. Hopkins
3. P. V. van Dokkum
4. A. Dekel
5. R. Dav'e
6. R. Somerville
7. M. Franx
8. C. Conroy

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

1. P. V. van Dokkum
2. M. Franx
3. M. Kriek
4. C. Conroy
5. I. Labbé
6. A. Dekel
7. James S. Bullock
8. Volker Springel

Citations in the corpus

• The size evolution of star-forming and quenched galaxies in the IllustrisTNG simulation (2017, background): “MNRAS 000, 000–000 (0000) with observations (Williams et al. 2017), as well as its weakening towards higher redshifts (Whitaker et al. 2012).”
• Compaction and quenching of high-z galaxies in cosmological simulations: blue and red nuggets (2014, background): “2009; Newman et al. 2010; van Dokkum et al. 2010; Damjanov et al. 2011; Whitaker et al. 2012; Bruce et al. 2012; van Dokkum et al. 2014).”
• STELLAR KINEMATICS OF z ∼ 2 GALAXIES AND THE INSIDE-OUT GROWTH OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES, (2012, background): “When we fit the spectrum of UDS-19627 in the same way as was described in Toft et al. (2012), we find a similar answer as theirs.”
• A PUBLIC Ks-SELECTED CATALOG IN THE COSMOS/UltraVISTA FIELD: PHOTOMETRY, PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS, AND STELLAR POPULATION PARAMETERS, (2013, background): “These blue-tip galaxies have colors that are similar to recently quenched galaxies, or “post star formation galaxies” (e.g., Kriek et al. 2010; Whitaker et al. 2012a) and are labelled “post-SF”.”
• CANDELS: THE PROGENITORS OF COMPACT QUIESCENT GALAXIES AT z ∼ 2 (2012, background): “Our observations connect two recent results at z ∼ 2: a population of compact (n & 2) galaxies with enhanced star formation activity (Wuyts et al. 2011b) and an increasing fraction of small, post-starburst galaxies recently arrived on the red sequence (Whitaker et al. 2012).”
• CONSTRAINING THE LOW-MASS SLOPE OF THE STAR FORMATION SEQUENCE AT 0.5 < z < 2.5 (2014, methodology): “…majority of star-forming galaxies follow a relatively tight relation between star formation rate (SFR ≡ Ψ) and stellar mass (M ) (Brinchmann et al. 2004; Noeske et al. 2007; Elbaz et al. 2007; Daddi et al. 2007; Magdis et al. 2010; González et al. 2010; Whitaker et al. 2012b; Huang et al. 2012).”
• Near infrared spectroscopy and star-formation histories of 3 ≤ z ≤ 4 quiescent galaxies (2018, background): “In fact, this region of the UVJ diagram was shown to be mainly populated by post-starburst galaxies (e.g., Whitaker et al. 2012; Wild et al. 2014).”
• THE MOSFIRE DEEP EVOLUTION FIELD (MOSDEF) SURVEY: REST-FRAME OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPY FOR ∼1500 H-SELECTED GALAXIES AT 1.37 ≤ z ≤ 3.8 ?> (2014, background): “However, as suggested by their location in the UVJ diagram, quiescent galaxies at z ∼ 1.5 are likely older with lower M/L, and thus may be more challenging to confirm (Whitaker et al. 2012).”
• Wet Disc Contraction to Galactic Blue Nuggets and Quenching to Red Nuggets (2013, methodology): “…massive galaxies at redshifts z = 2 − 3 are compact ellipticals with suppressed star formation rates (SFR), for which we adopt the nickname “red nuggets” (van Dokkum et al. 2008; Damjanov et al. 2009; van Dokkum, Kriek & Franx 2009; Newman et al. 2010; Damjanov et al. 2011; Whitaker et al. 2012).”
• An ALMA survey of the SCUBA-2 CLS UDS field: physical properties of 707 sub-millimetre galaxies (2019, background): “More recently these systems have been potentially linked to the formation of compact quiescent galaxies seen at z ∼ 1–2 (e.g. Whitaker et al. 2012; Simpson et al. 2014; Toft et al. 2014) as a result of their short gas depletion timescales.”
• CAN MINOR MERGING ACCOUNT FOR THE SIZE GROWTH OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES? NEW RESULTS FROM THE CANDELS SURVEY (2011, background): “On the other hand, some recent studies at higher redshift have found no sign of such a correlation (Trujillo et al. 2011; Whitaker et al. 2012; but see Saracco et al. 2011).”
• THE DUST ATTENUATION LAW IN DISTANT GALAXIES: EVIDENCE FOR VARIATION WITH SPECTRAL TYPE (2013, background): “The high quality of the NMBS photometry has been illustrated in van Dokkum et al. (2010) and Whitaker et al. (2010, 2012).”
• Galaxy morphology and star formation in the Illustris Simulation at z = 0 (2015, result): “Torrey et al. (2014) showed that the Illustris model approximately reproduces this trend at z = 0, and we find again that its location and slope in this plot is the same as that found by Whitaker et al. (2012).”
• A LINK BETWEEN STAR FORMATION QUENCHING AND INNER STELLAR MASS DENSITY IN SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY CENTRAL GALAXIES (2013, background): “However, they may represent the dominant quenching channel in the early universe (e.g., Whitaker et al. 2012; Barro et al. 2013).”
• How do minor mergers promote inside-out growth of ellipticals, transforming the size, density profile and dark matter fraction? (2012, background): “…et al. 2007; Trujillo et al. 2007; Zirm et al. 2007; Buitrago et al. 2008; van Dokkum et al. 2008; Cimatti et al. 2008; Franx et al. 2008; Saracco et al. 2009; Damjanov et al. 2009; Kriek et al. 2009; Bezanson et al. 2009; van Dokkum et al. 2010; Saglia 2010; Whitaker et al. 2012; Onodera 2012).”
• THE KMOS3D SURVEY: DESIGN, FIRST RESULTS, AND THE EVOLUTION OF GALAXY KINEMATICS FROM 0.7 ⩽ z ⩽ 2.7 (2014, background): “2.5 (Peng et al. 2010; Whitaker et al. 2012a).”