English

Evidence for Non-smooth Quenching in Massive Galaxies at $z\sim1$

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2020-01-08 v1

Abstract

We investigate a large sample of massive galaxies at z1z\sim1 with combined HSTHST broad-band and grism observations to constrain the star-formation histories of these systems as they transition from a star-forming state to quiescence. Among our sample of massive (M>1010 M)(M_*>10^{10}~{\rm M_\odot}) galaxies at 0.7<z<1.20.7<z<1.2, dust-corrected Hα\alpha and UV star-formation indicators agree with a small dispersion (0.2\sim0.2~dex) for galaxies on the main sequence, but diverge and exhibit substantial scatter (0.7\sim0.7~dex) once they drop significantly below the star-forming main sequence. Significant Hα\alpha emission is present in galaxies with low dust-corrected UV SFR values as well as galaxies classified as quiescent using the UVJUVJ diagram. We compare the observed Hα\alpha flux distribution to the expected distribution assuming bursty or smooth star-formation histories, and find that massive galaxies at z1z\sim1 are most consistent with a quick, bursty quenching process. This suggests that mechanisms such as feedback, stochastic gas flows, and minor mergers continue to induce low-level bursty star formation in massive galaxies at moderate redshift, even as they quench.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1910.14017,
  title  = {Evidence for Non-smooth Quenching in Massive Galaxies at $z\sim1$},
  author = {Timothy Carleton and Yicheng Guo and Hooshang Nayyeri and Michael Cooper and Gregory Rudnick and Katherine Whitaker},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.14017},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

Submitted to MNRAS after revision. Comments welcome!