LEGA-C stellar populations scaling relations. II: Dissecting mass-complete archaeological trends and their evolution since z~0.7 with LEGA-C and SDSS

Abstract

With a sample of 552 galaxies at z~0.7 from the LEGA-C survey, we investigate how current star formation influences light-weighted mean stellar ages and metallicities, and their median trends with stellar mass or velocity dispersion. The bimodality in the global age-mass relation stems from the different age distributions in the quiescent (Q) and star-forming (SF) populations. A bimodality is not observed in the stellar metallicity-mass relation, although Q and SF galaxies have different distributions in this parameter space. We identify a high-metallicity sequence populated by both Q and weakly SF galaxies. At masses below logM/Msun=10.8 the median stellar metallicity-mass relation of SF galaxies steepens, as a consequence of increasing scatter toward lower stellar metallicities for galaxies with increasing specific star formation rate at fixed mass. With a consistent analysis of SDSS DR7 spectra, accounting for aperture corrections, we quantify the evolution of the stellar age and stellar metallicity scaling relations between z=0.7 and the present. We find negligible evolution in the stellar metallicity-mass relation of Q galaxies and for logM/Msun>11 galaxies in general. Lower mass SF galaxies, instead, have typically lower metallicities than their local counterparts, indicating significant enrichment since z~0.7 in the low-mass regime. The median of the stellar ages of both the general population and Q galaxies has changed by only 2 Gyr between z=0.7 and z=0.1, less than expected from cosmic aging. Some Q galaxies must evolve passively to reach the old boundary of the local population. However, in order to explain the evolution of the median trends, both individual evolution, through rejuvenation and/or minor merging impacting the outer galaxy regions, and population evolution, through quenching of massive, metal-rich star-forming galaxies, are required. (Abridged)

23 pages including Appendices, 7 figures in main text, 3 figures in Appendices. Accepted for publication on A&A. This is the second paper of a series. Paper I will be posted soon

References in corpus (108)

• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• Star Formation in Galaxies Along the Hubble Sequence
• Cosmic Star Formation History
• The physical properties of star forming galaxies in the low redshift universe
• Stellar Masses and Star Formation Histories for 10^5 Galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Mass and environment as drivers of galaxy evolution in SDSS and zCOSMOS and the origin of the Schechter function
• A Simple Model for the Absorption of Starlight by Dust in Galaxies
• The epochs of early-type galaxy formation as a function of environment
• The Dependence of Star Formation History and Internal Structure on Stellar Mass for 10^5 Low-Redshift Galaxies
• NYU-VAGC: a galaxy catalog based on new public surveys
• The ages and metallicities of galaxies in the local universe
• A fundamental relation between mass, SFR and metallicity in local and high redshift galaxies
• Mass assembly in quiescent and star-forming galaxies since z=4 from UltraVISTA
• The Evolution of the Stellar Mass Functions of Star-Forming and Quiescent Galaxies to z = 4 from the COSMOS/UltraVISTA Survey
• The Infrared Spectral Energy Distribution of Normal Star-Forming Galaxies: Calibration at Far-Infrared and Submillimeter Wavelengths
• Passively Evolving Early-type Galaxies at 1.4<z<2.5 in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• Constraining the Low-Mass Slope of the Star Formation Sequence at 0.5<z<2.5
• The Atlas3D project - XX. Mass-size and mass-sigma distributions of early-type galaxies: bulge fraction drives kinematics, mass-to-light ratio, molecular gas fraction and stellar initial mass function
• The Stellar Population Histories of Early-Type Galaxies. II. Controlling Parameters of the Stellar Populations
• De Re Metallica: The cosmic chemical evolution of galaxies
• Strangulation as the primary mechanism for shutting down star formation in galaxies
• PRIMUS: Constraints on Star Formation Quenching and Galaxy Merging, and the Evolution of the Stellar Mass Function From z=0-1
• The Relation Between Compact, Quiescent High Redshift Galaxies and Massive Nearby Elliptical Galaxies: Evidence for Hierarchical, Inside-Out Growth
• Towards an understanding of the rapid decline of the cosmic star formation rate
• Galaxy Stellar Mass Functions from ZFOURGE/CANDELS: An Excess of Low-Mass Galaxies Since z=2 and the Rapid Buildup of Quiescent Galaxies
• The Atlas3D Project - XXX. Star formation histories and stellar population scaling relations of early-type galaxies
• Old Galaxies in the Young Universe
• A Public Ks-selected Catalog in the COSMOS/UltraVISTA Field: Photometry, Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Population Parameters
• Stellar Population Diagnostics of Elliptical Galaxy Formation
• A fundamental plane for field star-forming galaxies
• The Mass-Metallicity and the Fundamental Metallicity Relation revisited on a fully Te-based abundance scale for galaxies
• Ages and metallicities of early-type galaxies in the SDSS: new insight into the physical origin of the colour-magnitude and the Mg2-sigmaV relations
• The stellar populations of spiral galaxies
• Full spectrum fitting with photometry in pPXF: stellar population versus dynamical masses, non-parametric star formation history and metallicity for 3200 LEGA-C galaxies at redshift z~0.8
• The Metallicity of Galaxy Disks: Infall versus Outflow
• A massive, quiescent galaxy at redshift of z=3.717
• An Older, More Quiescent Universe from Panchromatic SED Fitting of the 3D-HST Survey
• A massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.658
• Star Formation and the Growth of Stellar Mass
• Semi-empirical analysis of Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies: II. The bimodality of the galaxy population revisited
• GAMA/G10-COSMOS/3D-HST: The 0<z<5 cosmic star-formation history, stellar- and dust-mass densities
• Quiescent galaxies 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang and their progenitors
• An Atlas of Color-selected Quiescent Galaxies at $z>3$ in Public $JWST$ Fields
• The VLT LEGA-C Spectroscopic Survey: The Physics of Galaxies at a Lookback Time of 7 Gyr
• Colors, magnitudes and velocity dispersions in early-type galaxies: Implications for galaxy ages and metallicities
• Charting the evolution of the ages and metallicities of massive galaxies since z=0.7
• The Cosmic Evolution of Metallicity from the SDSS Fossil Record
• The Constant Average Relationship between Dust-obscured Star Formation and Stellar Mass from $z=0$ to $z=2.5$
• Both starvation and outflows drive galaxy quenching
• A Model for Star Formation, Gas Flows and Chemical Evolution in Galaxies at High Redshifts
• On the Size and Comoving Mass Density Evolution of Early-Type Galaxies
• On the Last 10 Billion Years of Stellar Mass Growth in Star-Forming Galaxies
• On the interpretation of age and chemical composition of composite stellar populations determined with line-strength indices
• Quiescent Galaxies in the 3D-HST Survey: Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Large Number of Galaxies with Relatively Old Stellar Populations at z~2
• Stellar populations from spectroscopy of a large sample of quiescent galaxies at z > 1: Measuring the contribution of progenitor bias to early size growth
• The Assembly Histories of Quiescent Galaxies Since z=0.7 from Absorption Line Spectroscopy
• Dissecting the Red Sequence--I. Star Formation Histories of Quiescent Galaxies: The Color-Magnitude vs. the Color-Sigma Relation
• A New Census of the 0.2< z <3.0 Universe, Part II: The Star-Forming Sequence
• A New Census of the 0.2 < z < 3.0 Universe, Part I: The Stellar Mass Function
• Deep Absorption Line Studies of Quiescent Galaxies at z~2: The Dynamical Mass-Size Relation, and First Constraints on the Fundamental plane
• Revealing velocity dispersion as the best indicator of a galaxy's color, compared to stellar mass, surface mass density or morphology
• A massive galaxy that formed its stars at $z\sim 11$
• The Fraction of Quiescent Massive Galaxies in the Early Universe
• Evolution of Cluster Red-Sequence Galaxies from redshift 0.8 to 0.4: ages, metallicities and morphologies
• The evolution of early and late type galaxies in the COSMOS up to z~1.2
• Halpha surface photometry of galaxies in the Virgo cluster. IV: the current star formation in nearby clusters of galaxies
• Spatially Resolved Stellar Kinematics from LEGA-C: Increased Rotational Support in z~0.8 Quiescent Galaxies
• The DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey: Mean Ages and Metallicities of Red Field Galaxies at z ~ 0.9 from Stacked Keck/DEIMOS Spectra
• Galaxy evolution across environments as probed by the ages, stellar metallicities and [alpha/Fe] of central and satellite galaxies
• Scaling relations of metallicity, stellar mass, and star formation rate in metal-poor starbursts: I. A fundamental plane
• CLEAR I: Ages and Metallicities of Quiescent Galaxies at $1.0<\mathbf{z}<1.8$ Derived from Deep Hubble Space Telescope Grism Data
• New analytical solutions for chemical evolution models: characterizing the population of star-forming and passive galaxies
• The mass-metallicity relations for gas and stars in star-forming galaxies: strong outflow vs variable IMF
• The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS): Downsizing of the blue cloud and the influence of galaxy size on mass quenching over the last eight billion years
• Stellar Metallicities and Elemental Abundance Ratios of z~1.4 Massive Quiescent Galaxies
• Early-type galaxies in the PEARS survey: Probing the stellar populations at moderate redshift
• SFHs OF $Z\sim 1$ Galaxies in LEGA-C
• An analytical model for galaxy metallicity: What do metallicity relations tell us about star formation and outflow?
• Toward a Better Understanding of Cosmic Chronometers: Stellar Population Properties of Passive Galaxies at Intermediate Redshift
• Elemental Abundances and Ages of $z\sim 0.7$ Quiescent Galaxies on the Mass-Size Plane: Implication for Chemical Enrichment and Star-Formation Quenching
• HST grism spectroscopy of z~3 massive quiescent galaxies: Approaching the metamorphosis
• The stellar metallicities of massive quiescent galaxies at 1.0 < z < 1.3 from KMOS+VANDELS
• Inverse stellar population age gradients of post-starburst galaxies at z=0.8 with LEGA-C
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: drivers of stellar metallicity in nearby galaxies
• Star-forming galaxies are predicted to lie on a fundamental plane of mass, star formation rate and α-enhancement
• The evolution of the mass-metallicity relations from the VANDELS survey and the GAEA Semi-Analytic model
• Galaxy populations in massive z=0.2-0.9 clusters: I. Analysis of spectroscopy
• Stellar Dynamical Models for 797 $z\sim 0.8$ Galaxies from LEGA-C
• From Carbon to Cobalt: Chemical compositions and ages of $z\sim 0.7$ quiescent galaxies
• The weak imprint of environment on the stellar populations of galaxies
• A dynamical view on stellar metallicity gradient diversity across the Hubble sequence with CALIFA
• The SAMI galaxy survey: galaxy size can explain the offset between star-forming and passive galaxies in the mass-metallicity relationship
• The evolution of the scatter of the cosmic average color-magnitude relation: Demonstrating consistency with the ongoing formation of elliptical galaxies
• The dark side of galaxy stellar populations I: The stellar-to-halo mass relation and the velocity dispersion - halo mass relation
• An empirical prediction for stellar metallicity distributions in nearby galaxies
• WEAVE-StePS. A stellar population survey using WEAVE at WHT
• Stellar mass as the "glocal" driver of galaxies' stellar population properties
• Baryonic properties of nearby galaxies across the stellar-to-total dynamical mass relation
• The star formation history and the nature of the mass-metallicity relation of passive galaxies at 1.0<z<1.4 from VANDELS
• More is better: Strong constraints on the stellar properties of LEGA-C z ~ 1 galaxies with Prospector
• On the maximum age resolution achievable through stellar population synthesis models
• A new perspective on the stellar Mass-Metallicity Relation of quiescent galaxies from the LEGA-C survey
• Re-assessing the stellar population scaling relations of the galaxies in the Local Universe
• The miniJPAS survey. Evolution of the luminosity and stellar mass functions of galaxies up to $z\sim 0.7$
• LEGA-C stellar populations scaling relations. I: Chemo-archaeological downsizing trends at z~0.7
• Multiple star-forming episodes of intermediate-redshift galaxies
• Correcting the fiber-aperture bias affecting galaxy stellar populations in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Aperture corrections to absorption indices based on CALIFA integral field observations

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Dynamical properties and star formation history of a low-mass quenched galaxy at Cosmic Noon