Related papers: Star formation quenching imprinted on the internal…
In the present-day universe, it appears that most, and perhaps all, massive stars are born in star clusters. It also appears that all star clusters contain stars drawn from an approximately universal initial mass function, so that almost…
Over the past decade increasingly robust estimates of the dense molecular gas content in galaxy populations between redshift 0 and the peak of cosmic galaxy/star formation from redshift 1-3 have become available. This rapid progress has…
We investigate the stellar populations for a sample of 161 massive, mainly quiescent galaxies at $\langle z_{\rm obs} \rangle=0.8$ with deep Keck/DEIMOS rest-frame optical spectroscopy (HALO7D survey). With the fully Bayesian framework…
We present the results of Chandra X-ray observations of the isolated, massive, compact, relic galaxies MRK 1216 and PGC 032873. Compact massive galaxies observed at z>2, also called red nuggets, formed in quick dissipative events and later…
Our picture of galaxy evolution currently assumes that galaxies spend their life on the star formation main sequence (SFMS) until they are eventually quenched. However, recent observations show indications that the full picture might be…
The existence of a population of massive quiescent galaxies with little to no star-formation poses a challenge to our understanding of galaxy evolution. The physical process that quenched the star formation in these galaxies is debated, but…
We study the origin of high-redshift, compact, quenched spheroids (red nuggets) through the dissipative shrinkage of gaseous discs into compact star-forming systems (blue nuggets). The discs, fed by cold streams, undergo violent disc…
Understanding how and why star formation turns off in massive galaxies is a major challenge for studies of galaxy evolution. Many theoretical explanations have been proposed, but a definitive consensus is yet to be reached.
With the help of a statistical parameter derived from optical spectra, we show that the current star formation rate of a galaxy, falling into a cluster along a supercluster filament, is likely to undergo a sudden enhancement before the…
We investigate the physical processes which lead to the formation of massive stars. Using a numerical simulation of the formation of a stellar cluster from a turbulent molecular cloud, we evaluate the relevant contributions of fragmentation…
The empirical model of Lu et al. 2014 is updated with recent data and used to study galaxy star formation and assembly histories. At $z > 2$, the predicted galaxy stellar mass functions are steep, and a significant amount of star formation…
Using the TNG100 (100 Mpc)^3 simulation of the IllustrisTNG project, we demonstrate a strong connection between the onset of star formation quenching and the stellar size of galaxies. We do so by tracking the evolutionary history of…
Previous findings show that the existence of dense cores or bulges is the prerequisite for quenching a galaxy, leading to a proposed two-step quenching scenario: compaction and quenching. In this scenario, galaxies first grow their cores to…
The existence of massive quiescent galaxies at high redshift seems to require rapid quenching, but it is unclear whether all quiescent galaxies have gone through this phase and what physical mechanisms are involved. To study rapid…
Recent work has shown that the star formation-density relation -- in which galaxies with low star formation rates are preferentially found in dense environments -- is still in place at z~1, but the situation becomes less clear at higher…
We identify the intrinsic dependence of star formation quenching on a variety of galactic and environmental parameters, utilizing a machine learning approach with Random Forest classification. We have previously demonstrated the power of…
Observations show a prevalence of high redshift galaxies with large stellar masses and predominantly passive stellar populations. A variety of processes have been suggested that could reduce the star formation in such galaxies to observed…
I highlight three results from cosmological hydrodynamic simulations that yield a realistic red sequence of galaxies: 1) Major galaxy mergers are not responsible for shutting off star-formation and forming the red sequence. Starvation in…
In the local Universe, the efficiency for converting baryonic gas into stars is very low. In dark matter halos where galaxies form and evolve, the average efficiency varies with galaxy stellar mass and has a maximum of about twenty percent…
We compute chemical evolution models to constrain the mode and the history of star formation in starburst galaxies as a whole, i.e. over a large range of mass and metallicity. To this end, we investigate the origin of the dispersion…