The Origin of S0s in Clusters: evidence from the bulge and disc star formation histories

Abstract

The individual star formation histories of bulges and discs of lenticular (S0) galaxies can provide information on the processes involved in the quenching of their star formation and subsequent transformation from spirals. In order to study this transformation in dense environments, we have decomposed long-slit spectroscopic observations of a sample of 21 S0s from the Virgo Cluster to produce one-dimensional spectra representing purely the bulge and disc light for each galaxy. Analysis of the Lick indices within these spectra reveals that the bulges contain consistently younger and more metal-rich stellar populations than their surrounding discs, implying that the final episode of star formation within S0s occurs in their central regions. Analysis of the $\alpha$-element abundances in these components further presents a picture in which the final episode of star formation in the bulge is fueled using gas that has previously been chemically enriched in the disc, indicating the sequence of events in the transformation of these galaxies. Systems in which star formation in the disk was spread over a longer period contain bulges in which the final episode of star formation occurred more recently, as one might expect for an approximately coeval population in which the transformation from spiral to S0 occurred at different times. With data of this quality and the new analysis method deployed here, we can begin to describe this process in a quantitative manner for the first time.

arXiv comment11 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (32)

• The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Detailed Structural Decomposition of Galaxy Images
• Parametric Recovery of Line-of-Sight Velocity Distributions from Absorption-Line Spectra of Galaxies via Penalized Likelihood
• Detailed Decomposition of Galaxy Images. II. Beyond Axisymmetric Models
• Galaxy Harassment and the Evolution of Clusters of Galaxies
• MILES: A Medium resolution INT Library of Empirical Spectra
• Evolution since z = 0.5 of the Morphology-Density relation for Clusters of Galaxies
• Morphological Transformation from Galaxy Harassment
• Stellar population models of Lick indices with variable element abundance ratios
• Evolutionary Stellar Population Synthesis with MILES. Part I: The Base Models and a New Line Index System
• The Stellar Population Histories of Local Early-Type Galaxies. I. Population Parameters
• The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. VI. Isophotal Analysis and the Structure of Early-Type Galaxies
• On the Survival and Destruction of Spiral Galaxies in Clusters
• Passive spiral formation from halo gas starvation: Gradual transformation into S0s
• The stellar populations of spiral galaxies
• The evolution of the galactic morphological types in clusters
• The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. I. Introduction to the Survey
• The SAURON project - VI. Line strength maps of 48 elliptical and lenticular galaxies
• Ages of galaxy bulges and disks from optical and near-infrared colors
• The Morphological Content of Ten EDisCS Clusters at 0.5 < z < 0.8
• Ages of S0 and elliptical galaxies in the Coma cluster
• Spectroscopic bulge-disc decomposition: a new method to study the evolution of lenticular galaxies
• On the Origin of the Hubble Sequence: I. Insights on Galaxy Color Migration from Cosmological Simulations
• Disentangling the stellar populations in the counter-rotating disc galaxy NGC 4550
• Scale Lengths in Disk Surface Brightness as probes of Dust Extinction in 3 Spiral Galaxies: M 51, NGC 3631 and M 100
• Near-infrared bulge-disc correlations of lenticular galaxies
• Colours of Bulges and Discs within Galaxy Clusters and the Signature of Disc Fading on Infall
• Lenticular Galaxy Formation - Possible Luminosity Dependence
• Stellar population gradients in Fornax Cluster S0 galaxies: connecting bulge and disk evolution
• Stellar population gradients and spatially resolved kinematics in luminous post-starburst galaxies
• Stellar Population Trends in S0 Galaxies
• Caught in the act: Cluster `k+a' galaxies as a link between spirals and S0s

Cited by in corpus (57)

• Overview of the SDSS-IV MaNGA Survey: Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: Spatially resolved star formation histories in galaxies as a function of galaxy mass and type
• Galaxy Zoo: Secular evolution of barred galaxies from structural decomposition of multi-band images
• Molecular Gas Dominated 50 kpc Ram Pressure Stripped Tail of the Coma Galaxy D100
• On the interdependence of galaxy morphology, star formation, and environment in massive galaxies in the nearby Universe
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: The Formation Sequence of S0 Galaxies
• MHD simulations of ram pressure stripping of a disk galaxy
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: Bulge-Disc Decomposition of IFU Datacubes (BUDDI)
• Untangling galaxy components: full spectral bulge-disc decomposition
• S0 galaxies are faded spirals: clues from their angular momentum content
• Signatures of stellar accretion in MaNGA early-type galaxies
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: Decomposed Stellar Kinematics of Galaxy Bulges and Disks
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: A Range in S0 Properties Indicating Multiple Formation Pathways
• Dual Effects of Ram Pressure on Star Formation in Multi-phase Disk Galaxies with Strong Stellar Feedback
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: flipping of the spin-filament alignment correlates most strongly with growth of the bulge
• SDSS IV MaNGA: Full spectroscopic bulge-disc decomposition of MaNGA early-type galaxies
• Forming Lenticular Galaxies via Violent Disk Instability
• Spectro-photometric decomposition of galaxy structural components
• Stellar Mass-to-light Ratios: Composite Bulge+Disk Models and the Baryonic Tully-Fisher Relation
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: The Different Quenching Histories of Fast and Slow Rotators
• Formation of S0s via disc accretion around high-redshift compact ellipticals
• The origin of bulges and discs in the CALIFA survey: I. Morphological evolution
• The Next Generation Fornax Survey (NGFS): VII. A MUSE view of the nuclear star clusters in Fornax dwarf galaxies
• Formation of S0s in extreme environments I: clues from kinematics and stellar populations
• The Demographics of galactic bulges in the SDSS database
• ProFuse: Physical Multi-Band Structural Decomposition of Galaxies and the Mass-Size-Age Plane
• The environmental dependence of the structure of galactic discs in STAGES S0 galaxies: implications for S0 formation
• The continuous rise of bulges out of galactic disks
• The time delay between star formation quenching and morphological transformation of galaxies in clusters: a phase-space view of EDisCS
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: bulge and disk stellar population properties in cluster galaxies
• Indications of the invalidity of the exponentiality of the disk within bulges of spiral galaxies
• Nonlinear Color-Metallicity Relations of Globular Clusters. VIII. Reproducing Color Distributions of Individual Globular Cluster Systems in the Virgo and Fornax Galaxy Clusters
• Formation of S0s in extreme environments II: the star-formation histories of bulges, discs and lenses
• BUDDI-MaNGA II: The Star-Formation Histories of Bulges and Discs of S0s
• OMEGA -- OSIRIS Mapping of Emission-line Galaxies in A901/2: II. -- Environmental influence on integrated star formation properties and AGN activity
• The submillimetre view of massive clusters at z~0.8-1.6
• The colors of bulges and disks in the core and outskirts of galaxy clusters
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: The role of disc fading and progenitor bias in kinematic transitions
• Tidal Interactions and Mergers in Intermediate Redshift EDisCS Clusters
• Quantifying the stellar ages of dynamically separated bulges and disks of CALIFA spiral galaxies
• Recovering the origins of the lenticular galaxy NGC 3115 using multi-band imaging
• OMEGA -- OSIRIS Mapping of Emission-line Galaxies in A901/2: I.-- Survey description, data analysis, and star formation and AGN activity in the highest density regions
• Nuclear discs as clocks for the assembly history of early-type galaxies: the case of NGC4458
• The redshift evolution of the S0 fraction for $z<1$ in COSMOS
• The effect of the environment on the structure, morphology and star-formation history of intermediate-redshift galaxies
• The age gradients of galaxies in EAGLE: outside-in quenching as the origin of young bulges in cluster galaxies
• The complex globular cluster system of the S0 galaxy NGC 4382 in the outskirts of the Virgo Cluster
• The Spatially Resolved Dynamics of Dusty Starburst Galaxies in a z ~ 0.4 Cluster: Beginning the Transition from Spirals to S0s
• Comparison of the Stellar Populations of Bulges and Discs using the MaNGA Survey
• BUDDI-MaNGA I: A statistical sample of cleanly decomposed bulge and disc spectra
• On the genesis of spiral galaxies -- Classical and pseudo bulges as extremities of a continuous sequence
• The Stellar Kinematics of Extragalactic Bulges
• Post-processing of galaxies due to major cluster mergers I. hints from galaxy colours and morphologies
• Orbit-based structural decomposition and stellar population recovery for edge-on barred galaxies
• Stellar Populations of Spectroscopically Decomposed Bulge-Disk for S0 Galaxies from the CALIFA survey
• Independent Evidence for earlier formation epochs of fossil groups of galaxies through the intracluster light: the case for RX J100742.53+380046.6
• Star-forming S0 Galaxies in SDSS-MaNGA: fading spirals or rejuvenated S0s?