The origin and properties of red spirals: Insights from cosmological simulations

Abstract

A significant fraction of spiral galaxies are red, gas-poor, and have low star formation rates (SFRs). We study these unusual objects using the IllustrisTNG100 simulation. Among 1912 well-resolved disk galaxies selected from the last simulation output, we identify 377 red objects and describe their properties and origins using a few representative examples. The simulated red spirals turn out to be typically very gas-poor, have very low SFRs, are more metal-rich, and have larger stellar masses than the remaining disks. Only about 13% of red spirals suffered strong mass loss and thus could have resulted from environmental quenching by ram pressure and tidal stripping of the gas, or similar processes. The majority of red disks were probably quenched by feedback from the active galactic nucleus (AGN). This conclusion is supported by the higher black hole masses and lower accretion rates of red disks, as well as the larger total AGN feedback energies injected into the surrounding gas in the kinetic feedback mode implemented in the IllustrisTNG simulations. The timescales of the gas loss correlate with the black hole growth for the AGN-quenched galaxies and with the dark-matter loss for the environmentally quenched ones. The red spirals are more likely to possess bars, and their bars are stronger than in the remaining disks, which is probably the effect of gas loss rather than the reason for quenching.

11 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

References in corpus (19)

• Simulating galaxy formation with black hole driven thermal and kinetic feedback
• Strangulation as the primary mechanism for shutting down star formation in galaxies
• The Size Evolution of Star-forming and Quenched Galaxies in the IllustrisTNG simulation
• Galactic Angular Momentum in the Illustris Simulation: Feedback and the Hubble Sequence
• The STAGES view of red spirals and dusty red galaxies: Mass-dependent quenching of star-formation in cluster infall
• The Dependence of Bar Frequency on Galaxy Mass, Colour, and Gas Content -- and Angular Resolution -- in the Local Universe
• The interplay between a galactic bar and a supermassive black hole: nuclear fueling in a sub-parsec resolution galaxy simulation
• Bar quenching in gas-rich galaxies
• The impact of radio feedback from active galactic nuclei in cosmological simulations: Formation of disk galaxies
• Multiple Mechanisms Quench Passive Spiral Galaxies
• The High Fraction of Thin Disk Galaxies Continues to Challenge ΛCDM Cosmology
• The effect of warm gas on the buckling instability in galactic bars
• The (black hole mass)-(color) relations for early- and late-type galaxies: red and blue sequences
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Properties and evolution of red spiral galaxies
• The influence of Red Spiral Galaxies on the Shape of the Local K-Band Luminosity Function
• Lopsided galactic bars
• Quenching of Massive Disk Galaxies in the IllustrisTNG Simulation
• Lopsided galactic disks in IllustrisTNG
• Evaluating hydrodynamical simulations with green valley galaxies

Cited by in corpus (5)

• The CGM${}^2$ Survey: Quenching and the Transformation of the Circumgalactic Medium
• Pattern speed evolution of barred galaxies in TNG50
• Formation of a barred galaxy in a major merger: The role of AGN feedback
• Galaxy mass-size segregation in the cosmic web from the CAVITY parent sample
• Black hole mass of a quiescent galaxy hosting a Type 1 AGN at z=2.09: Implications for black hole - galaxy co-evolution and AGN quenching at high redshift