Massive quenched galaxies at z~0.7 retain large molecular gas reservoirs

Abstract

The physical mechanisms that quench star formation, turning blue star-forming galaxies into red quiescent galaxies, remain unclear. In this Letter, we investigate the role of gas supply in suppressing star formation by studying the molecular gas content of post-starburst galaxies. Leveraging the wide area of the SDSS, we identify a sample of massive intermediate-redshift galaxies that have just ended their primary epoch of star formation. We present ALMA CO(2-1) observations of two of these post-starburst galaxies at z~0.7 with M* ~ 2x10^11 Msun. Their molecular gas reservoirs of (6.4 +/- 0.8) x 10^9 Msun and (34.0 +/- 1.6) x 10^9 Msun are an order of magnitude larger than comparable-mass galaxies in the local universe. Our observations suggest that quenching does not require the total removal or depletion of molecular gas, as many quenching models suggest. However, further observations are required both to determine if these apparently quiescent objects host highly obscured star formation and to investigate the intrinsic variation in the molecular gas properties of post-starburst galaxies.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in ApJ Letters (6 pages, 5 figures)

References in corpus (46)

• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• Star Formation in Galaxies Along the Hubble Sequence
• The Global Schmidt Law in Star Forming Galaxies
• Energy input from quasars regulates the growth and activity of black holes and their host galaxies
• The Eleventh and Twelfth Data Releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final Data from SDSS-III
• How Do Galaxies Get Their Gas?
• The CO-to-H2 Conversion Factor
• A Unified, Merger-Driven Model for the Origin of Starbursts, Quasars, the Cosmic X-Ray Background, Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxy Spheroids
• Galaxy Bimodality due to Cold Flows and Shock Heating
• The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III
• The Dependence of Star Formation History and Internal Structure on Stellar Mass for 10^5 Low-Redshift Galaxies
• The Atlas3D project -- I. A volume-limited sample of 260 nearby early-type galaxies: science goals and selection criteria
• An ultra-deep near-infrared spectrum of a compact quiescent galaxy at z=2.2
• Differential Galaxy Evolution in Cluster and Field Galaxies at z=0.3
• PHIBSS: molecular gas content and scaling relations in z~1-3 normal star forming galaxies
• The Star-formation Mass Sequence out to z=2.5
• The Infrared Spectral Energy Distribution of Normal Star-Forming Galaxies: Calibration at Far-Infrared and Submillimeter Wavelengths
• Preliminary Results from NEOWISE: An Enhancement to the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for Solar System Science
• Morphological quenching of star formation: making early-type galaxies red
• The Atlas3D project - XV. Benchmark for early-type galaxies scaling relations from 260 dynamical models: mass-to-light ratio, dark matter, Fundamental Plane and Mass Plane
• Combined CO & Dust Scaling Relations of Depletion Time and Molecular Gas Fractions with Cosmic Time, Specific Star Formation Rate and Stellar Mass
• The Evolving Interstellar Medium of Star Forming Galaxies Since z=2 as Probed by Their Infrared Spectral Energy Distributions
• COLD GASS, an IRAM legacy survey of molecular gas in massive galaxies: I. Relations between H2, HI, stellar content and structural properties
• The Atlas3D project -- IV: the molecular gas content of early-type galaxies
• The Dust Attenuation Law in Distant Galaxies: Evidence for Variation with Spectral Type
• A General Model for the CO-H2 Conversion Factor in Galaxies with Applications to the Star Formation Law
• The Environment of ``E+A'' Galaxies
• The Formation of Massive, Compact Galaxies at z=2 in the Illustris Simulation
• The Atlas3D project - XIV. The extent and kinematics of molecular gas in early-type galaxies
• A Large Population of Massive Compact Post-Starburst Galaxies at z>1: Implications for the Size Evolution and Quenching Mechanism of Quiescent Galaxies
• Molecular Gas and Star Formation in the SAURON Early-type Galaxies
• The ATLAS3D Project - XXVIII. Dynamically-driven star formation suppression in early-type galaxies
• UVMULTIFIT: A versatile tool for fitting astronomical radio interferometric data
• Low, Milky-Way like, Molecular Gas Excitation of Massive Disk Galaxies at z~1.5
• The Spectral Energy Distribution of Post-Starburst Galaxies in the NEWFIRM Medium-Band Survey: A Low Contribution from TP-AGB Stars
• Measuring Ages and Elemental Abundances from Unresolved Stellar Populations: Fe, Mg, C, N, and Ca
• Discovery of Large Molecular Gas Reservoirs in Post-Starburst Galaxies
• The Argo Simulation: I. Quenching of Massive Galaxies at High Redshift as a Result of Cosmological Starvation
• Colours, Star formation Rates, and Environments of Star forming and Quiescent Galaxies at the Cosmic Noon
• Massive Compact Galaxies with High-Velocity Outflows: Morphological Analysis and Constraints on AGN Activity
• Gemini Deep Deep Survey VI: Massive Hdelta-strong galaxies at z=1
• The MASSIVE Survey - III. Molecular gas and a broken Tully-Fisher relation in the most massive early-type galaxies
• Escape, Accretion or Star Formation? The Competing Depleters of Gas in the Quasar Markarian 231
• A redline starburst: CO(2-1) observations of an Eddington-limited galaxy reveal star formation at its most extreme

Cited by in corpus (60)

• The Evolution of the Star-forming Interstellar Medium across Cosmic Time
• Near infrared spectroscopy and star-formation histories of 3<z<4 quiescent galaxies
• Star formation is boosted (and quenched) from the inside out: radial star formation profiles from MaNGA
• Quenching star formation with quasar outflows launched by trapped IR radiation
• Atomic and molecular gas in IllustrisTNG galaxies at low redshift
• Jekyll & Hyde: quiescence and extreme obscuration in a pair of massive galaxies 1.5 Gyr after the Big Bang
• A census of cool core galaxy clusters in IllustrisTNG
• Enhanced atomic gas fractions in recently merged galaxies: quenching is not a result of post-merger gas exhaustion
• Structural evolution in massive galaxies at z~2
• Molecular Gas Contents and Scaling Relations for Massive Passive Galaxies at Intermediate Redshifts from the LEGA-C Survey
• The structure of post-starburst galaxies at $0.5<z<2$: evidence for two distinct quenching routes at different epochs
• Evolution Through the Post-Starburst Phase: Using Post-Starburst Galaxies as Laboratories for Understanding the Processes that Drive Galaxy Evolution
• The ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: The nature of the faintest dusty star-forming galaxies
• Revisiting long-standing puzzles of the Milky Way: the Sun and its vicinity as typical outer disk chemical evolution
• After The Fall: The Dust and Gas in E+A Post-Starburst Galaxies
• Quenching of star formation from a lack of inflowing gas to galaxies
• ALMA measures rapidly depleted molecular gas reservoirs in massive quiescent galaxies at z~1.5
• On the Gas Content, Star Formation Efficiency, and Environmental Quenching of Massive Galaxies in Proto-Clusters at z~2.0-2.5
• The Typical Massive Quiescent Galaxy at z$\sim$3 is a Post-starburst
• The Interstellar Medium of Quiescent Galaxies and its Evolution With Time
• CO Emission in Infrared-Selected Active Galactic Nuclei
• Extremely Low Molecular Gas Content in a Compact, Quiescent Galaxy at z=1.522
• Evolution of the cold gas properties of simulated post-starburst galaxies
• High-velocity outflows in massive post-starburst galaxies at z > 1
• The Diverse Molecular Gas Content of Massive Galaxies Undergoing Quenching at z~1
• An ALMA view of star formation efficiency suppression in early-type galaxies after gas-rich minor mergers
• Molecular gas in distant galaxies from ALMA studies
• Fading AGN in Post-Starburst Galaxies
• The Role of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Quenching of Massive Galaxies in the SQuiGGLE Survey
• High Molecular-Gas to Dust Mass Ratios Predicted in Most Quiescent Galaxies
• Evidence for Inside-Out Galaxy Growth and Quenching of a z~2 Compact Galaxy from High-Resolution Molecular Gas Imaging
• Massive, Absorption-selected Galaxies at Intermediate Redshifts
• Star Formation Suppresion by Tidal Removal of Cold Molecular Gas from an Intermediate-Redshift Massive Post-Starburst Galaxy
• On the formation of massive quiescent galaxies with diverse morphologies in the TNG50 simulation
• Dust temperature uncertainties hamper the inference of dust and molecular gas masses from the dust continuum emission of quiescent high-redshift galaxies
• Why Post-Starburst Galaxies are Now Quiescent
• Molecular Gas Reservoirs in Massive Quiescent Galaxies at $\mathrm{z}\sim 0.7$ Linked to Late Time Star Formation
• The Compact Structures of Massive $z\sim 0.7$ Post-Starburst Galaxies in the SQuIGG$\vec{L}$E Sample
• From starburst to quiescence: post-starburst galaxies and their large-scale clustering over cosmic time
• Early Science with the Large Millimeter Telescope: Constraining the Gas Fraction of a Compact Quiescent Galaxy at z=1.883
• Redshift Evolution of Green Valley Galaxies in Different Environments from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey
• REQUIEM-2D: A diversity of formation pathways in a sample of spatially-resolved massive quiescent galaxies at z~2
• ALMA 1.3 mm Survey of Lensed Submillimeter Galaxies (SMGs) Selected by Herschel: Discovery of Spatially Extended SMGs and Implications
• The Elephant in the Bathtub: when the physics of star formation regulate the baryon cycle of galaxies
• Some Die Filthy Rich: The Diverse Molecular Gas Contents of Post-starburst Galaxies Probed by Dust Absorption
• Rest-Frame Near-Infrared Radial Light Profiles up to z=3 from JWST/NIRCam: Wavelength Dependence of the Sérsic Index
• The large molecular gas fraction of post-starburst galaxies at z > 1
• Stellar and Molecular Gas Rotation in a Recently-Quenched Massive Galaxy at z~0.7
• The [CII] 158 $\mu$m emission line as a gas mass tracer in high redshift quiescent galaxies
• The evolution of the gas fraction of quiescent galaxies modeled as a consequence of their creation rate
• The fate of the interstellar medium in early-type galaxies. III. The mechanism of ISM removal and quenching of star formation
• No evidence for excess AGN activity in recently quenched massive galaxies at cosmic noon
• The Gas Mass Reservoir of Quiescent Galaxies at Cosmic Noon
• JWST Observations of Starbursts: Relations between PAH features and CO clouds in the starburst galaxy M 82
• The uncertain interstellar medium of high-redshift quiescent galaxies: Impact of methodology
• DESI Massive Post-Starburst Galaxies at $\mathbf{z}\sim 1.2$ have compact structures and dense cores
• SQuIGG$\vec{L}$E: Observational Evidence of Low Ongoing Star Formation Rates in Gas-Rich Post-Starburst Galaxies
• The link between star formation and gas in nearby galaxies
• SQuIGGLE: Studying Quenching in Intermediate-z Galaxies -- Gas, AnguLar Momentum, and Evolution
• Now you see it, now you don't: Star formation truncation precedes the loss of molecular gas by ~100 Myr in massive post-starburst galaxies at z~0.6