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Strangulation as the primary mechanism for shutting down star formation in galaxies

Nature volume 521, pages 192–195 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Local galaxies are broadly divided into two main classes, star-forming (gas-rich) and quiescent (passive and gas-poor). The primary mechanism responsible for quenching star formation in galaxies and transforming them into quiescent and passive systems is still unclear. Sudden removal of gas through outflows1,2,3,4,5,6 or stripping7,8,9 is one of the mechanisms often proposed. An alternative mechanism is so-called “strangulation”10,11,12,13,14, in which the supply of cold gas to the galaxy is halted. Here we report an analysis of the stellar metallicity (the fraction of elements heavier than helium in stellar atmospheres) in local galaxies, from 26,000 spectra, that clearly reveals that strangulation is the primary mechanism responsible for quenching star formation, with a typical timescale of four billion years, at least for local galaxies with a stellar mass less than 1011 solar masses. This result is further supported independently by the stellar age difference between quiescent and star-forming galaxies, which indicates that quiescent galaxies of less than 1011 solar masses are on average observed four billion years after quenching due to strangulation.

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Figure 1: Illustration of two different quenching scenarios and their effect on stellar metallicities.
Figure 2: Stellar metallicities for star-forming and quiescent galaxies.
Figure 3: Stellar ages for star-forming and quiescent galaxies.
Figure 4: The effect of outflows on stellar metallicity evolution.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Gallazzi and her collaborators for making their SDSS DR4 version of the stellar ages and metallicities catalogues publicly available. We thank S. Lilly, A. Renzini, H.-W. Rix and M. Haehnelt for useful discussions. We acknowledge NASA’s IDL Astronomy Users Library, the IDL code base maintained by D. Schlegel, and the kcorrect software package of M. Blanton.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 19 J. J. Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0HE, UK

    Y. Peng, R. Maiolino & R. Cochrane

  2. Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HA, UK

    Y. Peng & R. Maiolino

  3. Institute for Astronomy, Royal Observatory Edinburgh, Blackford Hill, EH9 3HJ, Edinburgh, UK

    R. Cochrane

Authors
  1. Y. Peng
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  3. R. Cochrane
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Contributions

Y.P. and R.M. co-developed the idea; both contributed to the interpretation and manuscript writing. Y.P. and R.C. contributed to the measurements and analysis.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Y. Peng.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Figure 1 Gas fraction and star-formation efficiency for star-forming galaxies.

a, The observed total gas fraction for local galaxies determined using a constant CO-to-H2 conversion factor XCO (black dashed line) and an H-band luminosity-dependent conversion factor (black solid line) in Boselli et al.20. The predicted total gas fraction (molecular and atomic) for star-forming galaxies as a function of stellar mass from the Peng and Maiolino37 model at z ≈ 0.05 (red solid line). b, Star-formation efficiency ε, defined as ε = SFR/Mgas, that is, the reverse of the gas depletion timescale, as a function of stellar mass.

Extended Data Figure 2 Stellar metallicity difference for different redshift bins.

To investigate any aperture effects, the sample over the whole redshift range 0.02 < z < 0.085 is further divided into two narrower redshift ranges of 0.02 < z < 0.05 and 0.05 < z < 0.085. It is clear that the derived stellar metallicity difference changes little as a function of redshift, that is, as a function of projected aperture. The error bars on each line indicate the 1σ uncertainty in the metallicity difference.

Extended Data Figure 3 Stellar metallicity difference for central and satellite galaxies.

The whole sample is further divided into central galaxies and satellites. The orange line shows the central galaxies in the field, which represents a clean sample of true central galaxies, as explained in the text. The stellar metallicity enhancement of satellites is slightly larger than that of central galaxies at Mstar < 1010M⊙ (suggesting that environment may play a part in the strangulation mechanism at these low masses), while no detectable difference between them is seen at higher stellar masses. The error bars indicate the 1σ uncertainty in the metallicity difference.

Extended Data Figure 4 Probability density function of star-forming and passive galaxies.

In each panel the blue line shows the probability density function (PDF) of the stellar metallicity of star-forming galaxies for a given stellar mass and the red line shows the corresponding PDF of passive galaxies. The overlapping region of the two PDFs is shaded (light red). The fraction of the shaded area over the total area given by each of PDF (fmax) gives the maximum fraction of galaxies for which rapid gas removal may be an allowed alternative quenching mechanism.

Extended Data Figure 5 Effect of a constant star-formation efficiency on stellar metallicity evolution.

As for Fig. 2b, but for the case of a constant star-formation efficiency of ε = 0.5 Gyr−1 (that is, a constant gas depletion timescale of τdep = 2 Gyr) after strangulation. At Mstar > ∼1010M⊙, the observed mass-dependent metallicity enhancement is still consistently Δt ≈ 4 or 5 Gyr, while at lower stellar masses it requires a shorter Δt, as explained in the text. Error bars on the black line indicate the 1σ uncertainty in the metallicity difference.

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Peng, Y., Maiolino, R. & Cochrane, R. Strangulation as the primary mechanism for shutting down star formation in galaxies. Nature 521, 192–195 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14439

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