The ATLAS3D Project – XXVIII. Dynamically driven star formation suppression in early-type galaxies

By T. Davis, L. M. Young, A. Crocker, M. Bureau, L. Blitz, K. Alatalo, Eric Emsellem, T. Naab, E. Bayet, M. Bois and 15 more. 2014

147 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present measurements of the star formation rate (SFR) in the early-type galaxies (ETGs) of the ATLAS 3D sample, based on Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) 22 µm and Galaxy Evolution Explorerfar-ultraviolet emission. We combine these with gas masses estimated from 12 CO and H I data in order to investigate the star formation efficiency (S FE) in a larger sample of ETGs than previously available. We first rec alibrate (based on WISE data) the relation between old stellar populations (traced at Ks-band) and 22 µm luminosity, allowing us to remove the contribution of 22 µm emission from circumstellar dust. We then go on to investigate the position of ETGs on the Kennicutt-Schmidt (KS) relation. Molecular gas-rich ETGs have comparable star formation surface densities to normal spiral galaxy centres, but they lie systematically offset from the KS relation, having lower star formation efficiencies by a factor of �2.5 (in agreement with other authors). This effect is driven by galaxies where a substantial fraction of the molecular material is in the ris ing part of the rotation curve, and shear is high. We show here for the first time that although the number of stars formed per unit gas mass per unit time is lower in ETGs, it seems that the amount of stars formed per freefall time is approximately constant. The scatter around thi s dynamical relation still correlates with galaxy properties such as the shape of the potential in t he inner regions. This leads us to suggest that dynamical properties (such as shear or the global stability of the gas) may be important second parameters that regulate star formation and cause much of the scatter around star-formation relations.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fa8bebbfa5be0c1b738a51cd28d444ff3a80d3fc

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. M. Cappellari
2. T. Naab
3. P. Hopkins
4. L. Hernquist
5. R. Somerville
6. R. Dav'e
7. S. Khochfar
8. Volker Springel

In Instrumentation

1. M. Cappellari
2. T. Naab
3. P. Hopkins
4. L. Hernquist
5. S. Khochfar
6. Joop Schaye
7. M. Sarzi
8. M. Bureau

Citations in the corpus

• Molecular hydrogen abundances of galaxies in the EAGLE simulations (2015, methodology): “This is because at small scales the star formation law in EAGLE follows the standard Kennicutt (1998) star formation relation, which has a higher normalization than the star formation relation inferred for early-type galaxies (Davis et al. 2014).”
• Structure and Kinematics of Early-Type Galaxies from Integral Field Spectroscopy (2016, background): “…et al. 2006; Croton et al. 2006; Hopkins et al. 2006), as may the stabilizing effect of the bulge itself (Martig et al. 2009; Ceverino et al. 2010), which may contribute to the observed decrease of the star formation efficiency in ETGs (Saintonge et al. 2012; Martig et al. 2013; Davis et al. 2014).”
• The ATLAS3D Project – XXX. Star formation histories and stellar population scaling relations of early-type galaxies (2015, background): “…constrain where the stars have formed from our integrated measurements, it is certainly the case that the recent (and even ongoing; Shapiro et al. 2010; Davis et al. 2014) star formation is more present in the central regions of our lower mass galaxies, supporting the view that this is ‘in situ’.”
• The big problems in star formation: The star formation rate, stellar clustering, and the initial mass function (2014, background): “Figure 4 further extends the data set by adding several more recent observations as well, including a sample of molecular gas in early-type galaxies from Davis et al. (2014).”
• Near infrared spectroscopy and star-formation histories of 3 ≤ z ≤ 4 quiescent galaxies (2018, background): “…that quenching is not simply caused by a full removal of the gas, but is accompanied (and, perhaps, driven) by a reduced star-formation efficiency (e.g., Davis et al. 2014; Alatalo et al. 2014, 2015; French et al. 2015; Schreiber et al. 2016; Suess et al. 2017; Lin et al. 2017; Gobat et al. 2018).”
• The Formation and Destruction of Molecular Clouds and Galactic Star Formation (2015, background): “There are many report that the Kennicutt-Schmidt correlation varies with some properties of galaxies (e.g., Saintonge et al. 2011, 2012; Meidt et al. 2013; Davis et al. 2014).”
• A z = 0 Multiwavelength Galaxy Synthesis. I. A WISE and GALEX Atlas of Local Galaxies (2019, methodology): “There will be more optical heating of interstellar dust grains, producing interstellar cirrus Davis et al. (2014) and a floor provided by emission from circumstellar dust (Simonian & Martini 2017).”