TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating the growing population of massive quiescent galaxies at cosmic noon
AU - Sherman, Sydney
AU - Jogee, Shardha
AU - Florez, Jonathan
AU - Stevans, Matthew L.
AU - Kawinwanichakij, Lalitwadee
AU - Wold, Isak
AU - Finkelstein, Steven L.
AU - Papovich, Casey
AU - Ciardullo, Robin
AU - Gronwall, Caryl
AU - Cora, Sofía A.
AU - Hough, Tomás
AU - Vega-Martínez, Cristian A.
N1 - Funding Information:
SS, SJ, and JF gratefully acknowledge support from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as National Science Foundation grant AST 1413652. SS, SJ, JF, and SF acknowledge support from National Science Foundation grant AST 1614798. SS, SJ, JF, MS, and SF acknowledge generous support from The University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory and Department of Astronomy Board of Visitors. SS, SJ, JF, MS, and SF also acknowledge the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin for providing HPC resources that have contributed to the research results reported within this paper. SS is supported by the University of Texas at Austin Graduate Continuing Fellowship. LK and CP acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation through grant AST 1614668. SC acknowledges funding from Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET; PIP-0387), and Universidad Nacional de La Plata (G11-150), Argentina. TH acknowledges CONICET, Argentina, for their supporting fellowships. CVM acknowledges financial support from the Max Planck Society through a Partner Group grant. The generation of SAG and SAGE data was performed on the OzSTAR national facility at Swinburne University of Technology. The OzSTAR programme receives funding in part from the Astronomy National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) allocation provided by the Australian Government. SC thanks Darren Croton for providing access to this facility. The authors wish to thank Annalisa Pillepich, Martina Donnari, and Mark Vogelsberger for providing IllustrisTNG results and useful comments, Romeel Davé for providing SIMBA results and guidance, and Andrew Benson and Darren Croton for their latest results and feedback regarding comparisons with semi-analytic models. The Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos is supported by the Eberly College of Science and the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research at the Pennsylvania State University. This publication uses data generated via the Zooniverse.org platform, development of which is funded by generous support, including a Global Impact Award from Google, and by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s)
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - We explore the build-up of quiescent galaxies using a sample of 28 469 massive (M* ≥ 1011 M☉) galaxies at redshifts 1.5 < z < 3.0, drawn from a 17.5 deg2 area (0.33 Gpc3 comoving volume at these redshifts). This allows for a robust study of the quiescent fraction as a function of mass at 1.5 < z < 3.0 with a sample ∼40 times larger at log(M*/M☉) ≥ 11.5 than previous studies. We derive the quiescent fraction using three methods: specific star formation rate, distance from the main sequence, and UVJ colour-colour selection. All three methods give similar values at 1.5 < z < 2.0, however the results differ by up to a factor of 2 at 2.0 < z < 3.0. At redshifts 1.5 < z < 3.0, the quiescent fraction increases as a function of stellar mass. By z = 2, only 3.3 Gyr after the big bang, the universe has quenched ∼25 per cent of M* = 1011 M☉ galaxies and ∼45 per cent of M* = 1012 M☉ galaxies. We discuss physical mechanisms across a range of epochs and environments that could explain our results. We compare our results with predictions from hydrodynamical simulations SIMBA and IllustrisTNG and semi-analytic models (SAMs) SAG, SAGE, and Galacticus. The quiescent fraction from IllustrisTNG is higher than our empirical result by a factor of 2-5, while those from SIMBA and the three SAMs are lower by a factor of 1.5-10 at 1.5 < z < 3.0.
AB - We explore the build-up of quiescent galaxies using a sample of 28 469 massive (M* ≥ 1011 M☉) galaxies at redshifts 1.5 < z < 3.0, drawn from a 17.5 deg2 area (0.33 Gpc3 comoving volume at these redshifts). This allows for a robust study of the quiescent fraction as a function of mass at 1.5 < z < 3.0 with a sample ∼40 times larger at log(M*/M☉) ≥ 11.5 than previous studies. We derive the quiescent fraction using three methods: specific star formation rate, distance from the main sequence, and UVJ colour-colour selection. All three methods give similar values at 1.5 < z < 2.0, however the results differ by up to a factor of 2 at 2.0 < z < 3.0. At redshifts 1.5 < z < 3.0, the quiescent fraction increases as a function of stellar mass. By z = 2, only 3.3 Gyr after the big bang, the universe has quenched ∼25 per cent of M* = 1011 M☉ galaxies and ∼45 per cent of M* = 1012 M☉ galaxies. We discuss physical mechanisms across a range of epochs and environments that could explain our results. We compare our results with predictions from hydrodynamical simulations SIMBA and IllustrisTNG and semi-analytic models (SAMs) SAG, SAGE, and Galacticus. The quiescent fraction from IllustrisTNG is higher than our empirical result by a factor of 2-5, while those from SIMBA and the three SAMs are lower by a factor of 1.5-10 at 1.5 < z < 3.0.
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U2 - 10.1093/mnras/staa3167
DO - 10.1093/mnras/staa3167
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85097138013
SN - 0035-8711
VL - 499
SP - 4239
EP - 4260
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
IS - 3
ER -