Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 440, Issue 1, Pages 889-907Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stu327
Keywords
galaxies: active; galaxies: elliptical and lenticular; cD; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: spiral
Categories
Funding
- Swiss National Science Foundation [PP00P2_ 138979/1]
- Oxford Martin School and Worcester College, Oxford
- Microsoft and The Leverhulme Trust
- STFC [ST/I001204/1]
- National Research Foundation of Korea [2010-0027910]
- Korea Research Council of Fundamental Science and Technology
- Center of Excellence inAstrophysics and Associated Technologies [PFB 06]
- FONDECYT [1120061]
- Anillo project [ACT1101]
- US National Science Foundation [DRL-0941610]
- NSF [AST-1055081]
- Worcester College, Oxford
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- National Science Foundation
- US Department of Energy
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Japanese Monbukagakusho
- Max Planck Society
- Higher Education Funding Council for England
- National Research Foundation of Korea [2010-0027910, 2009-0078756] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/M001857/1, ST/I001204/1, ST/K00090X/1, ST/L005573/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- STFC [ST/K00090X/1, ST/I001204/1, ST/M001857/1, ST/L005573/1, ST/F009186/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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We use SDSS+GALEX+Galaxy Zoo data to study the quenching of star formation in low-redshift galaxies. We show that the green valley between the blue cloud of star-forming galaxies and the red sequence of quiescent galaxies in the colour-mass diagram is not a single transitional state through which most blue galaxies evolve into red galaxies. Rather, an analysis that takes morphology into account makes clear that only a small population of blue early-type galaxies move rapidly across the green valley after the morphologies are transformed from disc to spheroid and star formation is quenched rapidly. In contrast, the majority of blue star-forming galaxies have significant discs, and they retain their late-type morphologies as their star formation rates decline very slowly. We summarize a range of observations that lead to these conclusions, including UV-optical colours and halo masses, which both show a striking dependence on morphological type. We interpret these results in terms of the evolution of cosmic gas supply and gas reservoirs. We conclude that late-type galaxies are consistent with a scenario where the cosmic supply of gas is shut off, perhaps at a critical halo mass, followed by a slow exhaustion of the remaining gas over several Gyr, driven by secular and/or environmental processes. In contrast, early-type galaxies require a scenario where the gas supply and gas reservoir are destroyed virtually instantaneously, with rapid quenching accompanied by a morphological transformation from disc to spheroid. This gas reservoir destruction could be the consequence of a major merger, which in most cases transforms galaxies from disc to elliptical morphology, and mergers could play a role in inducing black hole accretion and possibly active galactic nuclei feedback.
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