The Evolution of the Interstellar Medium in Post-Starburst Galaxies

Abstract

We derive dust masses ($M_{\mathrm{dust}}$) from the spectral energy distributions of 58 post-starburst galaxies (PSBs). There is an anticorrelation between specific dust mass ($M_{\mathrm{dust}}$/$M_{\star }$) and the time elapsed since the starburst ended, indicating that dust was either destroyed, expelled, or rendered undetectable over the $\sim$1 Gyr after the burst. The $M_{\mathrm{dust}}$/$M_{\star }$ depletion timescale, 205${}_{-37}^{+58}$ Myr, is consistent with that of the CO-traced $M_{{\mathrm{H}}_2}/M_{\star }$, suggesting that dust and gas are altered via the same process. Extrapolating these trends leads to the $M_{\mathrm{dust}}/M_{\star }$ and $M_{{\mathrm{H}}_2}/M_{\star }$ values of early-type galaxies (ETGs) within 1-2 Gyr, a timescale consistent with the evolution of other PSB properties into ETGs. Comparing $M_{\mathrm{dust}}$ and $M_{{\mathrm{H}}_2}$ for PSBs yields a calibration, log $M_{{\mathrm{H}}_2}$ = 0.45 log $M_{\mathrm{dust}}$ + 6.02, that allows us to place 33 PSBs on the Kennicutt-Schmidt (KS) plane, $\Sigma \mathrm{SFR}-\mathrm{\Sigma }{\mathrm{M}}_{{\mathrm{H}}_2}$. Over the first $\sim$200-300 Myr, the PSBs evolve down and off of the KS relation, as their star formation rate (SFR) decreases more rapidly than $M_{{\mathrm{H}}_2}$. Afterwards, $M_{{\mathrm{H}}_2}$ continues to decline whereas the SFR levels off. These trends suggest that the star-formation efficiency bottoms out at 10${}^{-11}\mathrm{y}{\mathrm{r}}^{-1}$ and will rise to ETG levels within 0.5-1.1 Gyr afterwards. The SFR decline after the burst is likely due to the absence of gas denser than the CO-traced H${}_2$. The mechanism of the $M_{\mathrm{dust}}/M_{\star }$ and$M_{{\mathrm{H}}_2}/M_{\star }$ decline, whose timescale suggests active galactic nucleus (AGN) or low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) feedback, may also be preventing the large CO-traced molecular gas reservoirs from collapsing and forming denser star forming clouds.

v1: 29 pages, 13 figures, to be published in ApJ. v2: Figure 6 and 7 fixed; more references added

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• Evolution Through the Post-Starburst Phase: Using Post-Starburst Galaxies as Laboratories for Understanding the Processes that Drive Galaxy Evolution
• 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
• Multi-phase outflows in post starburst E+A galaxies -- II. A direct connection between the neutral and ionized outflow phases
• The fate of the interstellar medium in early-type galaxies. I. First direct measurement of the timescale of dust removal
• Early Science with the Large Millimeter Telescope: Constraining the Gas Fraction of a Compact Quiescent Galaxy at z=1.883
• ALMA 1.3 mm Survey of Lensed Submillimeter Galaxies (SMGs) Selected by Herschel: Discovery of Spatially Extended SMGs and Implications
• Some Die Filthy Rich: The Diverse Molecular Gas Contents of Post-starburst Galaxies Probed by Dust Absorption
• Optical/UV Emission in the Tidal Disruption Event ASASSN-14li: Implications of Disc Modeling
• Quenching in the Right Place at the Right Time: Tracing the Shared History of Starbursts, AGNs, and Post-starburst Galaxies Using Their Structures and Multiscale Environments
• Refining the E+A Galaxy: A Spatially Resolved Spectrophotometric Sample of Nearby Post-starburst Systems in SDSS-IV MaNGA (MPL-5)
• Do Post-Starburst Galaxies Host Compact Molecular Gas Reservoirs?