DESI Massive Post-Starburst Galaxies at $\mathbf{z}\sim 1.2$ have compact structures and dense cores

Abstract

Post-starburst galaxies (PSBs) are young quiescent galaxies that have recently experienced a rapid decrease in star formation, allowing us to probe the fast-quenching period of galaxy evolution. In this work, we obtained HST WFC3/F110W imaging to measure the sizes of 171 massive ($\log ({\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }/{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot })\sim 11)$ spectroscopically identified PSBs at $1<z<1.3$ selected from the DESI Survey Validation Luminous Red Galaxy sample. This statistical sample constitutes an order of magnitude increase from the $\sim 20$ PSBs with space-based imaging and deep spectroscopy. We perform structural fitting of the target galaxies with \texttt{pysersic} and compare them to quiescent and star-forming galaxies in the 3D-HST survey. We find that these PSBs are more compact than the general population of quiescent galaxies, lying systematically $\sim 0.1\mathrm{dex}$ below the established size-mass relation. However, their central surface mass densities are similar to those of their quiescent counterparts ($\log ({\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{1\mathrm{kpc}}/({\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }/kp{\mathrm{c}}^2))\sim 10.1$). These findings are easily reconciled by later ex-situ growth via minor mergers or a slight progenitor bias. These PSBs are round in projection ($b/a_{median}\sim 0.8$), suggesting that they are primarily spheroids, not disks, in 3D. We find no correlation between time since quenching and light-weighted PSB sizes or central densities. This disfavors apparent structural growth due to the fading of centralized starbursts in this galaxy population. Instead, we posit that the fast quenching of massive galaxies at this epoch occurs preferentially in galaxies with pre-existing compact structures.

22 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (99)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• emcee: The MCMC Hammer
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• The Astropy Project: Sustaining and Growing a Community-oriented Open-source Project and the Latest Major Release (v5.0) of the Core Package
• Overview of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys
• Detailed Decomposition of Galaxy Images. II. Beyond Axisymmetric Models
• A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies: I. Galaxy Mergers & Quasar Activity
• 3D-HST+CANDELS: The Evolution of the Galaxy Size-Mass Distribution since $z=3$
• 3D-HST WFC3-selected Photometric Catalogs in the Five CANDELS/3D-HST Fields: Photometry, Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Masses
• Differential Galaxy Evolution in Cluster and Field Galaxies at z=0.3
• The Star-formation Mass Sequence out to z=2.5
• Morphological quenching of star formation: making early-type galaxies red
• The Growth of Massive Galaxies Since z=2
• The Two Phases of Galaxy Formation
• Galaxy Structure and Mode of Star Formation in the SFR-Mass Plane from z ~ 2.5 to z ~ 0.1
• 3D-HST: A wide-field grism spectroscopic survey with the Hubble Space Telescope
• Extragalactic Science, Cosmology and Galactic Archaeology with the Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS)
• Stellar Population Inference with Prospector
• Black Holes in Galaxy Mergers: Evolution of Quasars
• Compaction and Quenching of High-z Galaxies in Cosmological Simulations: Blue and Red Nuggets
• Dust Attenuation Curves in the Local Universe: Demographics and New Laws for Star-forming Galaxies and High-redshift Analogs
• The Relation Between Compact, Quiescent High Redshift Galaxies and Massive Nearby Elliptical Galaxies: Evidence for Hierarchical, Inside-Out Growth
• Physical properties and environments of nearby galaxies
• Deriving Physical Properties from Broadband Photometry with Prospector: Description of the Model and a Demonstration of its Accuracy Using 129 Galaxies in the Local Universe
• Wet Disc Contraction to Galactic Blue Nuggets and Quenching to Red Nuggets
• Overview of the Instrumentation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• Structure and star formation in galaxies out to z=3: evidence for surface density dependent evolution and upsizing
• Can Minor Merging Account for the Size Growth of Quiescent Galaxies? New Results from the CANDELS Survey
• The Discovery of 1000 km/s Outflows in Massive Post-starburst Galaxies at z=0.6
• The Early Data Release of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• A Link Between Star Formation Quenching and Inner Stellar Mass Density in SDSS Central Galaxies
• Forming Compact Massive Galaxies
• Evolution of Density Profiles in High-z Galaxies: Compaction and Quenching Inside-Out
• The Formation of Massive, Compact Galaxies at z=2 in the Illustris Simulation
• A universal structural and star-forming relation since $z\sim 3$: connecting compact star-forming and quiescent galaxies
• An Older, More Quiescent Universe from Panchromatic SED Fitting of the 3D-HST Survey
• The Spectroscopic Data Processing Pipeline for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• Target Selection and Validation of DESI Luminous Red Galaxies
• A Large Population of Massive Compact Post-Starburst Galaxies at z>1: Implications for the Size Evolution and Quenching Mechanism of Quiescent Galaxies
• Project Overview of the Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey
• MOSFIRE Spectroscopy of Quiescent Galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5. II - Star Formation Histories and Galaxy Quenching
• COSMOS-DASH: The Evolution of the Galaxy Size-Mass Relation Since z~3 from new Wide Field WFC3 Imaging Combined with CANDELS/3DHST
• The Robotic Multi-Object Focal Plane System of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)
• Sizes and surface brightness profiles of quiescent galaxies at z ~ 2
• CANDELS+3D-HST: compact SFGs at z~2-3, the progenitors of the first quiescent galaxies
• 266 E+A Galaxies Selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 2: The Origin of E+A Galaxies
• Geometry of Star-Forming Galaxies from SDSS, 3D-HST and CANDELS
• The evolution of post-starburst galaxies from z=2 to z= 0.5
• The Target-selection Pipeline for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• Half-mass radii for ~7,000 galaxies at 1.0 < z < 2.5: most of the evolution in the mass-size relation is due to color gradients
• Predicting Quiescence: The Dependence of Specific Star Formation Rate on Galaxy Size and Central Density at 0.5<z<2.5
• The Progenitors of the Compact Early-Type Galaxies at High-Redshift
• Discovery of Large Molecular Gas Reservoirs in Post-Starburst Galaxies
• High-Velocity Outflows Without AGN Feedback: Eddington-Limited Star Formation in Compact Massive Galaxies
• A 100-kiloparsec wind feeding the circumgalactic medium of a massive compact galaxy
• Fast and slow paths to quiescence: ages and sizes of 400 quiescent galaxies from the LEGA-C survey
• MOSFIRE Spectroscopy of Quiescent Galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5. I - Evolution of Structural and Dynamical Properties
• Massive post-starburst galaxies at z > 1 are compact proto-spheroids
• Keck-I MOSFIRE spectroscopy of compact star-forming galaxies at z$\gtrsim$2: High velocity dispersions in progenitors of compact quiescent galaxies
• Connection Between Stellar Mass Distributions Within Galaxies and Quenching Since z =2
• The sizes of massive quiescent and star forming galaxies at z~4 with ZFOURGE and CANDELS
• Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program: A Mass-Dependent Slope of the Galaxy Size-Mass Relation at $z<1$
• Massive quenched galaxies at z~0.7 retain large molecular gas reservoirs
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): The mechanisms for quiescent galaxy formation at $z<1$
• A new method for classifying galaxy SEDs from multi-wavelength photometry
• Preliminary Target Selection for the DESI Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) Sample
• Half-mass radii of quiescent and star-forming galaxies evolve slowly from 0 < z < 2.5: implications for galaxy assembly histories
• Massive Compact Galaxies with High-Velocity Outflows: Morphological Analysis and Constraints on AGN Activity
• 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 Relation between Galaxy Structure and Spectral Type: Implications for the Buildup of the Quiescent Galaxy Population at 0.5<z<2.0
• Dissecting the size-mass and ${\Sigma }_1$-mass relations at 1.0 < z < 2.5: galaxy mass profiles and color gradients as a function of spectral shape
• Post-Starburst Galaxies in SDSS-IV MaNGA
• Stellar Metallicities and Elemental Abundance Ratios of z~1.4 Massive Quiescent Galaxies
• Performance of the Quasar Spectral Templates for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• Low Gas Fractions Connect Compact Star-Forming Galaxies to their z ~ 2 Quiescent Descendants
• Color gradients along the quiescent galaxy sequence: clues to quenching and structural growth
• The colors and sizes of recently quenched galaxies: a result of compact starburst before quenching
• Galaxy Sizes Since $z=2$ from the Perspective of Stellar Mass Distribution within Galaxies
• Color gradients and half-mass radii of galaxies out to $z=2$ in the CANDELS/3D-HST fields: further evidence for important differences in the evolution of mass-weighted and light-weighted sizes
• Inverse stellar population age gradients of post-starburst galaxies at z=0.8 with LEGA-C
• Evidence for Inside-Out Galaxy Growth and Quenching of a z~2 Compact Galaxy from High-Resolution Molecular Gas Imaging
• The Size-Mass relation at Rest-Frame $1.5\mu$m from JWST/NIRCam in the COSMOS-WEB and PRIMER-COSMOS fields
• A large sample of Kohonen selected E+A (post-starburst) galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Compact Structures of Massive $z\sim 0.7$ Post-Starburst Galaxies in the SQuIGG$\vec{L}$E Sample
• Compact Starburst Galaxies with Fast Outflows: Central Escape Velocities and Stellar Mass Surface Densities from Multi-band Hubble Space Telescope Imaging
• From starburst to quiescence: post-starburst galaxies and their large-scale clustering over cosmic time
• The Evolution of Post-Starburst Galaxies from $z\sim 1$ to the Present
• SQuIGG$\vec{L}$E Survey: Massive z$\sim$0.6 Post-Starburst Galaxies Exhibit Flat Age Gradients
• Kinematics, Structure, and Mass Outflow Rates of Extreme Starburst Galactic Outflows
• The first catalogue of spectroscopically confirmed red nuggets at z~0.7 from the VIPERS survey. Linking high-z red nuggets and local relics
• Age and metal gradients in massive quiescent galaxies at $0.6\lesssim z\lesssim 1.0$: implications for quenching and assembly histories
• Ages and metallicities of quiescent galaxies: confronting broadband ($UVJ$) colours with stellar absorption lines
• JADES Ultra-red Flattened Objects: Morphologies and Spatial Gradients in Color and Stellar Populations
• DESI Survey Validation Spectra Reveal an Increasing Fraction of Recently Quenched Galaxies at $z\sim 1$
• Searching for local counterparts of high-redshift post-starburst galaxies in integral field unit spectroscopic surveys of nearby galaxies
• From VIPERS to SDSS: Unveiling galaxy spectra evolution over 9 Gyr through unsupervised machine-learning

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Recent star formation in 0.5<z<1.5 quiescent galaxies
• The LEGA-C galaxy survey: multiple quenching channels for quiescent galaxies at $z\sim 1$
• Disclosing Submillimeter Galaxy Formation: Mergers or Secular Evolution?
• The multiwavelength structure of post-starburst galaxies at 0.5 < z < 3 with JWST PRIMER: compact morphologies and residual disturbances
• Everything Every Band All at Once I: A Global Morphology Catalog in Abell 2744 based on UNCOVER/MegaScience