MUSE tells the story of NGC 4371: The dawning of secular evolution

Abstract

We use data from the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE), recently commissioned at the Very Large Telescope (VLT), to study the kinematics and stellar population content of NGC 4371, an early-type massive barred galaxy in the core of the Virgo cluster. We integrate this study with a detailed structural analysis using imaging data from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, which allows us to perform a thorough investigation of the physical properties of the galaxy. We show that the rotationally supported inner components in NGC 4371, an inner disc and a nuclear ring - which, according to the predominant scenario, are built with stars formed from gas brought to the inner region by the bar - are vastly dominated by stars older than 10 Gyr. Our results thus indicate that the formation of the bar occurred at a redshift of about $z=1.8_{-0.4}^{+0.5}$ (error bars are derived from 100 Monte Carlo realisations). NGC 4371 thus testifies to the robustness of bars. In addition, the mean stellar age of the fraction of the major disc of the galaxy covered by our MUSE data is above 7 Gyr, with a small contribution from younger stars. This suggests that the quenching of star formation in NGC 4371, likely due to environmental effects, was already effective at a redshift of about $z=0.8_{-0.1}^{+0.2}$. Our results point out that bar-driven secular evolution processes may have an extended impact in the evolution of galaxies, and thus on the properties of galaxies as observed today, not necessarily restricted to more recent cosmic epochs.

Accepted for publication in A&A; 19 pages, 16 figures, 2 tables

References in corpus (36)

• The GALEX Ultraviolet Atlas of Nearby Galaxies
• The SAURON project -- IX. A kinematic classification for early-type galaxies
• Dynamics of Barred Galaxies
• A Near-Infrared Study of 2MASS Bars in Local Galaxies: An Anchor for High Redshift Studies
• A Classical Morphological Analysis of Galaxies in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G)
• The population of barred galaxies in the local universe I. Detection and characterisation of bars
• LoCuSS: The slow quenching of star formation in cluster galaxies and the need for pre-processing
• The SAURON project - VII. Integral-field absorption and emission-line kinematics of 24 spiral galaxy bulges
• The Outer Disks of Early-Type Galaxies. I. Surface-Brightness Profiles of Barred Galaxies
• Image Decomposition of Barred Galaxies and AGN Hosts
• The interplay between a galactic bar and a supermassive black hole: nuclear fueling in a sub-parsec resolution galaxy simulation
• Composite Bulges: The Coexistence of Classical Bulges and Disky Pseudobulges in S0 and Spiral Galaxies
• Gas flow in barred potentials
• A Strong Correlation between Circumnuclear Dust and Black Hole Accretion in Early-Type Galaxies
• Milky Way mass galaxies with X-shaped bulges are not rare in the local Universe
• A Connection Between Bulge Properties and the Bimodality of Galaxies
• The formation of stellar nuclear discs in bar-induced gas inflows
• Secular- and merger-built bulges in barred galaxies
• Disc instabilities and semi-analytic modelling of galaxy formation
• 2D kinematic signatures of boxy/peanut bulges
• Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers. Bulge-disc structural coupling resulting from major mergers
• Confirmation of a Kinematic Diagnostic for Face-On B/P Bulges
• Frequency and properties of bars in cluster and field galaxies at intermediate redshifts
• A Morphological and Statistical Analysis of Ansae in Barred Galaxies
• The distribution of stellar population age in galactic bars
• The Mass Profile and Shape of Bars in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G): Search for an Age Indicator for Bars
• The Effects of Boxy/Peanut Bulges on Galaxy Models
• Dissecting galactic bulges in space and time I: the importance of early formation scenarios vs. secular evolution
• New light on the formation and evolution of bars: Trends in the stellar line-strength indices distribution inside the bar region
• The environment of barred galaxies in the low-redshift Universe
• The variation in molecular gas depletion time among nearby galaxies: II the impact of galaxy internal structures
• Star Formation Properties in Barred Galaxies(SFB). III. Statistical Study of Bar-driven Secular Evolution using a sample of nearby barred spirals
• Morphological evolution in situ: Disk-dominated cluster red sequences at z ~ 1.25
• Gaseous-phase metallicities and stellar populations in the centres of barred galaxies
• The NGC 4013 tale: a pseudo-bulged, late-type spiral shaped by a major merger
• Sigma-drop in galaxies and the sigma-metallicity degeneracy

Cited by in corpus (54)

• Separation of Stellar Populations by an Evolving Bar: Implications for the Bulge of the Milky Way
• Stellar kinematics across the Hubble sequence in the CALIFA survey: General properties and aperture corrections
• Chemodynamics of barred galaxies in cosmological simulations: On the Milky Way's quiescent merger history and in-situ bulge
• Time Inference with MUSE in Extragalactic Rings (TIMER): Properties of the Survey and High-Level Data Products
• Black Hole Mass Scaling Relations for Early-Type Galaxies: $M_{BH}$-$M_{\ast ,sph}$ and $M_{BH}$-$M_{\ast ,gal}$
• Bar quenching in gas-rich galaxies
• Galaxy Zoo: Secular evolution of barred galaxies from structural decomposition of multi-band images
• Kinematic signatures of nuclear discs and bar-driven secular evolution in nearby galaxies of the MUSE TIMER project
• First Look at z > 1 Bars in the Rest-Frame Near-Infrared with JWST Early CEERS Imaging
• The GIST Pipeline: A Multi-Purpose Tool for the Analysis and Visualisation of (Integral-field) Spectroscopic Data
• The inside-out formation of nuclear discs and the absence of old central spheroids in barred galaxies of the TIMER survey
• The Fornax3D project: overall goals, galaxy sample, MUSE data analysis and initial results
• Tidally induced bars of galaxies in clusters
• Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers. Morphological properties: tidal relics, lenses, ovals, and other inner components
• A JWST investigation into the bar fraction at redshifts 1 < z < 3
• The shapes of spiral arms in the S${}^4$G survey and their connection with stellar bars
• Barlenses and X-shape features compared: different manifestations of Boxy/Peanut bulges
• Age Dating the Galactic Bar with the Nuclear Stellar Disc
• Bar-induced central star formation as revealed by integral field spectroscopy from CALIFA
• Stellar mass distribution of S${}^4$G disk galaxies and signatures of bar-induced secular evolution
• GASP XXXIII. The ability of spatially resolved data to distinguish among the different physical mechanisms affecting galaxies in low-density environments
• The distribution of star formation in galactic bars as seen with H$\alpha$ and stacked GALEX UV imaging
• Redistribution of Stars and Gas in the Star Formation Deserts of Barred Galaxies
• Evidence of Bar-induced Secular Evolution in the Inner Regions of Stellar Discs in Galaxies: What Shapes Disc Galaxies?
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: Stellar Population Gradients Within Barred Galaxies
• Stellar populations across galaxy bars in the MUSE TIMER project
• Clocking the assembly of double-barred galaxies with the MUSE TIMER project
• The build-up of pseudobulges in a hierarchical universe
• Inner bars also buckle. The MUSE TIMER view of the double-barred galaxy NGC 1291
• NGC 5746: formation history of a massive disc-dominated galaxy
• A new method for age-dating the formation of bars in disc galaxies: The TIMER view on NGC1433's old bar and the inside-out growth of its nuclear disc
• Stars behind bars II: A cosmological formation scenario for the Milky Way's central stellar structure
• Metallicity Gradient of Barred Galaxies with TYPHOON
• Observational constraints to boxy/peanut bulge formation time
• Mira variables in the Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc: discovery and classification
• On the observational diagnostics to separate classical and disk-like bulges
• Composite Bulges -- II. Classical Bulges and Nuclear Discs in Barred Galaxies: The Contrasting Cases of NGC 4608 and NGC 4643
• Complex central structures suggest complex evolutionary paths for barred S0 galaxies
• Reading the tea leaves in the $M_{\mathrm{bh}}$-$M_{\ast ,\mathrm{sph}}$ and $M_{\mathrm{bh}}$-$R_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{sph}}$ diagrams: dry and gaseous mergers with remnant angular momentum
• BAYES-LOSVD: a bayesian framework for non-parametric extraction of the line-of-sight velocity distribution of galaxies
• Bar ages derived for the first time in nearby galaxies: Insights on secular evolution from the TIMER sample
• Comparing the properties of the X-shaped bulges of NGC 4710 and the Milky Way with MUSE
• Disc galaxies are still settling: The discovery of the smallest nuclear discs and their young stellar bars
• Large gas inflow driven by a matured galactic bar in the early Universe
• Predicted Stellar Kinematics of a Kiloparsec-Scale Nuclear Disc (or Ring) in the Milky Way
• Splitting the lentils: Clues to galaxy/black hole coevolution from the discovery of offset relations for non-dusty versus dusty (wet-merger-built) lenticular galaxies in the $M_{\mathrm{bh}}$-$M_{\ast ,\mathrm{spheroid}}$ diagram
• COSMOS-Web: The emergence of the Hubble Sequence
• The kinematics of young and old stellar populations in nuclear rings of MUSE TIMER galaxies
• Euclid: Early Release Observations of diffuse stellar structures and globular clusters as probes of the mass assembly of galaxies in the Dorado group
• NOEMA${}^{3D}$: A first kpc resolution study of a $z\sim 1.5$ main sequence barred galaxy channeling gas into a growing bulge
• Unveiling the kinematics of a central region in the triple AGN host NGC 7733-7734 interacting group
• Unravelling the Post-Collision Properties of the Cartwheel Galaxy: A MUSE Exploration of its Bar and Inner Region
• Kinematics of the lens host S0 galaxy NGC 1553: role of secular processes
• Age distribution of stars in boxy/peanut/X-shaped bulges formed without bar buckling