SDSS IV MaNGA - The spatially resolved transition from star formation to quiescence


Type
Article
Change log
Authors
Belfiore, F 
Maraston, C 
Emsellem, E 
Bershady, MA 
Abstract

Using spatially resolved spectroscopy from SDSS-IV MaNGA we have demonstrated that low ionisation emission line regions (LIERs) in local galaxies result from photoionisation by hot evolved stars, not active galactic nuclei. LIERs are ubiquitous in both quiescent galaxies and in the central regions of galaxies where star formation takes place at larger radii. We refer to these two classes of galaxies as extended LIER (eLIER) and central LIER (cLIER) galaxies respectively. cLIERs are late type galaxies located around the green valley, in the transition region between the star formation main sequence and quiescent galaxies. These galaxies display regular disc rotation in both stars and gas, although featuring a higher central stellar velocity dispersion than star forming galaxies of the same mass. cLIERs are consistent with being slowly quenched inside-out; the transformation is associated with massive bulges, pointing towards the importance of bulge growth via secular evolution. eLIERs are morphologically early types and are indistinguishable from passive galaxies devoid of line emission in terms of their stellar populations, morphology and central stellar velocity dispersion. Ionised gas in eLIERs shows both disturbed and disc-like kinematics. When a large-scale flow/rotation is observed in the gas, it is often misaligned relative to the stellar component. These features indicate that eLIERs are passive galaxies harbouring a residual cold gas component, acquired mostly via external accretion. Importantly, quiescent galaxies devoid of line emission reside in denser environments and have significantly higher satellite fraction than eLIERs. Environmental effects thus represent the likely cause for the existence of line-less galaxies on the red sequence.

Description
Keywords
astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.GA, galaxies: evolution, galaxies: fundamental parameters, galaxies: ISM
Journal Title
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
0035-8711
1365-2966
Volume Title
466
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Sponsorship
Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/K003119/1)
Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/M001172/1)
European Research Council (695671)
FB, RM and KM acknowledge funding from the United Kingdom Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). RM acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant 695671 ‘QUENCH’. AR-L acknowledges partial support from the DIULS regular project PR15143. MB was supported by NSF/AST-1517006. KB was supported by World Premier International Research Centre Initiative (WPI Initiative), MEXT, Japan and by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 15K17603. AW acknowledges support from a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. AD acknowledges support from The Grainger Foundation. The authors are thankful to Y. Peng and D. Goddard for their help with the environmental measures for the SDSS galaxy sample and to M. Blanton for developing and maintaining the NASA-Sloan Atlas; to the members of the SDSS-IV MaNGA collaboration, in particular the dedicated team of observers at APO. The visual classification of the Galaxy Zoo galaxies was made by more than 100 000 volunteers. Their contributions are acknowledged at http://www.galaxyzoo.org/Volunteers.aspx This work makes use of data from SDSS-I–II and IV. This research made use of Marvin (Cherinka et al. in preparation), a core Python package and web framework for MaNGA data, developed by Brian Cherinka, José Sánchez-Gallego and Brett Andrews. Funding for SDSS-I-II and SDSS-IV has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Participating Institutions. Additional funding for SDSS-II comes the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, the Max Planck Society and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. Additional funding towards SDSS-IV has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. SDSS-IV acknowledges support and resources from the Centre for High-Performance Computing at the University of Utah. The SDSS web site is www.sdss.org