Across the Green Valley with HST grisms: colour evolution, crossing time-scales and the growth of the red sequence at $z=1.0-1.8$

Abstract

We measure the colour evolution and quenching time-scales of $z=1.0-1.8$ galaxies across the green valley. We derive rest-frame $NUVrK$ colours and select blue-cloud, green-valley and red-sequence galaxies from the spectral energy distribution modelling of CANDELS GOODS-South and UDS multi-band photometry. Separately, we constrain the star-formation history (SFH) parameters (ages, $\tau$) of these galaxies by fitting their deep archival HST grism spectroscopy. We derive the galaxy colour-age relation and show that only rapidly evolving galaxies with characteristic delayed-$\tau$ SFH time-scales of $<0.5$ Gyr reach the red sequence at these redshifts, after a period of accelerated colour evolution across the green valley. These results indicate that the stellar mass build-up of these galaxies stays minimal after leaving the blue cloud and entering the green valley (i.e., it may represent $\lesssim 5\%$ of the galaxies' final, quiescent masses). Visual inspection of age-sensitive features in the stacked spectra also supports the view that these galaxies follow a quenching sequence along the blue-cloud $\to$ green-valley $\to$ red-sequence track. For this rapidly evolving population, we measure a green-valley crossing time-scale of $0.99_{-0.25}^{+0.42}$ Gyr and a crossing rate at the bottom of the green valley of $0.82_{-0.25}^{+0.27}$ mag/Gyr. Based on these time-scales, we estimate that the number density of massive ($M_{\star }>10^{10}{M}_{\odot }$) red-sequence galaxies doubles every Gyr at these redshifts, in remarkable agreement with the evolution of the quiescent galaxy stellar mass function. These results offer a new approach to measuring galaxy quenching over time and represent a pathfinder study for future JWST, Euclid, and Roman Space Telescope programs.

23 pages, 16 figures, 1 appendix. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

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