English

Galaxy Structure, Stellar Populations, and Star Formation Quenching at 0.6 $\lesssim$ $z$ $\lesssim$ 1.2

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2018-11-14 v1

Abstract

We use both photometric and spectroscopic data from the {\it Hubble Space Telescope} to explore the relationships among 4000 \AA\ break (D4000) strength, colors, stellar masses, and morphology, in a sample of 352 galaxies with log(M/M)>9.44(M_{*}/M_{\odot}) > 9.44 at 0.6 z\lesssim z \lesssim 1.2. We have identified authentically quiescent galaxies in the UVJUVJ diagram based on their D4000 strengths. This spectroscopic identification is in good agreement with their photometrically-derived specific star formation rates (sSFR). Morphologically, most (that is, 66 out of 68 galaxies, \sim 97 \%) of these newly identified quiescent galaxies have a prominent bulge component. However, not all of the bulge-dominated galaxies are quenched. We found that bulge-dominated galaxies show positive correlations among the D4000 strength, stellar mass, and the S\'ersic index, while late-type disks do not show such strong positive correlations. Also, bulge-dominated galaxies are clearly separated into two main groups in the parameter space of sSFR vs. stellar mass and stellar surface density within the effective radius, Σe\Sigma_{\rm e}, while late-type disks and irregulars only show high sSFR. This split is directly linked to the `blue cloud' and the `red sequence' populations, and correlates with the associated central compactness indicated by Σe\Sigma_{\rm e}. While star-forming massive late-type disks and irregulars (with D4000 << 1.5 and log(M/M)10.5(M_{*}/M_{\odot}) \gtrsim 10.5) span a stellar mass range comparable to bulge-dominated galaxies, most have systematically lower Σe\Sigma_{\rm e} \lesssim 109Mkpc210^{9}M_{\odot}\rm{kpc^{-2}}. This suggests that the presence of a bulge is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for quenching at intermediate redshifts.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1810.01498,
  title  = {Galaxy Structure, Stellar Populations, and Star Formation Quenching at 0.6 $\lesssim$ $z$ $\lesssim$ 1.2},
  author = {Keunho Kim and Sangeeta Malhotra and James E. Rhoads and Bhavin Joshi and Ignacio Fererras and Anna Pasquali},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.01498},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

23 pages, 11 figures, and 3 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ