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The diverse evolutionary pathways of post-starburst galaxies

Nature Astronomy volume 3, pages 440–446 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

About 35 years ago a class of galaxies with unusually strong Balmer absorption lines and weak emission lines was discovered in distant galaxy clusters1,2. These objects, alternatively referred to as post-starburst, E+A or k+a galaxies, are now known to occur in all environments and at all redshifts3,4,5,6,7, with many exhibiting compact morphologies and low-surface brightness features indicative of past galaxy mergers3,8. They are commonly thought to represent galaxies that are transitioning from blue to red sequence, making them critical to our understanding of the origins of galaxy bimodality9,10,11,12,13,14. However, recent observational studies have questioned this simple interpretation15,16,17,18. From observations alone, it is challenging to disentangle the different mechanisms that lead to the quenching of star formation in galaxies. Here we present examples of three different evolutionary pathways that lead to galaxies with strong Balmer absorption lines in the Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments (EAGLE) simulation19,20: classical blue → red quenching, blue → blue cycle and red → red rejuvenation. The first two are found in both post-starburst galaxies and galaxies with truncated star formation. Each pathway is consistent with scenarios hypothesized for observational samples2,15,18,21,22. The fact that ‘post-starburst’ signatures can be attained via various evolutionary channels explains the diversity of observed properties, and lends support to the idea that slower quenching channels are important at low redshift23,24.

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Fig. 1: The evolution of the SFR, gas content and morphology of the four example EAGLE post-starburst galaxies as a function of lookback time from z = 0.1.
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

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Data availability

The raw data used in this paper are available to download from the EAGLE public database http://icc.dur.ac.uk/Eagle/database.php. The case study galaxies presented here can be identified via their unique galaxyid. The database is described in refs. 40,69. The eigenvectors and PC amplitudes for SDSS DR7 spectra presented in Fig. 3 and Supplementary Fig. 4 are available for download from http://www-star.st-and.ac.uk/ vw8/downloads/DR7PCA.html. The PCA code and morphological analysis code are available for download from https://github.com/SEDMORPH. The spectral synthesis models used to build the spectra from the EAGLE star formation histories are available for download from http://www.bruzual.org/bc03/Updated_version_2016/.

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Acknowledgements

M.M.P. and V.W. acknowledge support of the European Research Council (SEDMorph, principal investigator V.W.). S.M. acknowledges support from the Academy of Finland, grant number 314238. R.A.C. is a Royal Society University Research Fellow. V.W. thanks A. Werle for his help investigating the PC amplitude offsets. This work was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (grant number ST/P000541/1). This work used the DiRAC Data Centric system at Durham University, operated by the Institute for Computational Cosmology on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility (www.dirac.ac.uk). This equipment was funded by BIS National E-infrastructure capital grant ST/K00042X/1, STFC capital grant ST/H008519/1 and STFC DiRAC Operations grant ST/K003267/1 and Durham University. DiRAC is part of the National E-Infrastructure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

    M. M. Pawlik & V. Wild

  2. Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    S. McAlpine

  3. Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham, UK

    S. McAlpine, J. W. Trayford & R. Bower

  4. Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands

    J. W. Trayford, M. Schaller & J. Schaye

  5. Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK

    R. A. Crain

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Contributions

M.M.P. led the analysis and writing of the manuscript, with significant input from S.M. and J.W.T. who provided the EAGLE data and associated analysis products. V.W. conceived the initial idea, supported M.M.P. throughout the project and led the response to the referees reports. R.B., R.A.C., M.S. and J.S. are builders of the EAGLE simulation. They read and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to V. Wild.

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Pawlik, M.M., McAlpine, S., Trayford, J.W. et al. The diverse evolutionary pathways of post-starburst galaxies. Nat Astron 3, 440–446 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0725-z

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