Aging of galaxies along the morphological sequence, marked by bulge growth and disk quenching

Abstract

We revisit the color bimodality of galaxies using the extensive EFIGI morphological classification of nearby galaxies. The galaxy SDSS images in the g, r and i bands are decomposed as bulge+disk using SourceXtractor++. The spectral energy distributions made of our gri photometry complemented with GALEX NUV are fitted with ZPEG in order to estimate the stellar masses and specific star formations rates (sSFR) of whole galaxies as well as their bulge and disk components. The absolute NUV-r color versus stellar mass diagram shows a continuous relationship between the present sSFR of galaxies and their stellar mass, that spans all morphological types of the Hubble sequence. Irregular galaxies to Sab spirals make up the Blue Cloud, the Green Plain (formerly Valley) is made up of early-type spirals (S0a-Sa) while the Red Sequence contains all lenticular and elliptical galaxies, with systematically higher masses for the ellipticals. Galaxies across the Green Plain undergo a marked growth by a factor 2 to 3 in their bulge-to-total mass ratio and a systematic profile change from pseudo to classical bulges, as well as a significant reddening interpreted as star formation fading in their disks. Therefore, the Green Plain is a transition region, and we exclude a predominantly quick transit due to rapid quenching. We suggest that tracers of increased star formation (bright HII regions, spiral arms, flocculence) determine the limited scatter of the Main Sequence of star-forming galaxies. The high frequency of bars for all spirals as well as the stronger spiral arms and flocculence in the knee of the Green Plain suggest that internal dynamics, likely triggered by flybys or mergers, may be the key to the bulge growth of massive disk galaxies, marker of the aging of galaxies from star forming to quiescence. The Hubble sequence can then be considered as an inverse sequence of galaxy physical evolution.

25 pages, 27 figures. Published in A&A

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