Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Quenching of star formation from a lack of inflowing gas to galaxies

Nature volume 597, pages 485–488 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Star formation in half of massive galaxies was quenched by the time the Universe was 3 billion years old1. Very low amounts of molecular gas seem to be responsible for this, at least in some cases2,3,4,5,6,7, although morphological gas stabilization, shock heating or activity associated with accretion onto a central supermassive black hole are invoked in other cases8,9,10,11. Recent studies of quenching by gas depletion have been based on upper limits that are insufficiently sensitive to determine this robustly2,3,4,5,6,7, or stacked emission with its problems of averaging8,9. Here we report 1.3 mm observations of dust emission from 6 strongly lensed galaxies where star formation has been quenched, with magnifications of up to a factor of 30. Four of the six galaxies are undetected in dust emission, with an estimated upper limit on the dust mass of 0.0001 times the stellar mass, and by proxy (assuming a Milky Way molecular gas-to-dust ratio) 0.01 times the stellar mass in molecular gas. This is two orders of magnitude less molecular gas per unit stellar mass than seen in star forming galaxies at similar redshifts12,13,14. It remains difficult to extrapolate from these small samples, but these observations establish that gas depletion is responsible for a cessation of star formation in some fraction of high-redshift galaxies.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Images of six massive lensed galaxies for which star formation has been quenched.
Fig. 2: Low dust masses for quenched galaxies.
Fig. 3: Low molecular gas masses compared to star forming galaxies.

Data availability

Data that support the findings of this study are publicly available through the ALMA Science Archive under project codes 2018.1.00276.S and 2019.1.00227.S and the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescope under project code HST-GO-15663 (including additional archival data from project codes HST-GO-9722, HST-GO-9836, HST-SNAP-11103, HST-GO-11591, HST-GO-12099, HST-GO-12100, HST-SNAP-12884, HST-GO-13459, HST-SNAP-14098, HST-GO-14205, HST-GO-14496, HST-SNAP-15132 and HST-GO-15466). All HST and ALMA mosaics are publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5009315. Derived data and codes supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request. Source data are provided with this paper.

References

  1. Muzzin, A. et al. The evolution of the stellar mass functions of star-forming and quiescent galaxies to z=4 from the COSMOS/UltraVISTA survey. Astrophys. J. 777, 18 (2013).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Sargent, M. et al. A direct constraint on the gas content of a massive, passively evolving elliptical galaxy at z = 1.43. Astrophys. J. 806, 20 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Spilker, J. et al. Molecular gas contents and scaling relations for massive, passive galaxies at intermediate redshifts from the LEGA-C survey. Astrophys. J. 860, 103 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Bezanson, R. et al. Extremely low molecular gas content in a compact, quiescent galaxy at z = 1.522. Astrophys. J. 873, 19 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Zavala, J. et al. On the gas content, star formation efficiency, and environmental quenching of massive galaxies in protoclusters at z ~ 2.0-2.5. Astrophys. J. 887, 183 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Caliendo, J. et al. Early science with the large millimeter telescope: constraining the gas fraction of a compact quiescent galaxy at z = 1.883. Astrophys. J. Lett.  910, L7 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Williams, C. et al. ALMA measures rapidly depleted molecular gas reservoirs in massive quiescent galaxies at z~1.5. Astrophys. J. 908, 54 (2021).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Gobat, R. et al. The unexpectedly large dust and gas content of quiescent galaxies at z>1.4. Nat. Astron. 2, 239–246 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Magdis, G. et al. The interstellar medium of quiescent galaxies and its evolution with time. Astron. Astrophys. 647, 33 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Suess, K. et al. Massive quenched galaxies at z~0.7 retain large molecular gas reservoirs. Astrophys. J. 846, 14 (2017).

    Article  MathSciNet  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Hayashi, M. et al. Molecular gas reservoirs in cluster galaxies at z = 1.46. Astrophys. J. 856, 118 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Tacconi, L. et al. High molecular gas fractions in normal massive star-forming galaxies in the young Universe. Nature 463, 781–784 (2010).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Genzel, R. et al. Combined CO and dust scaling relations of depletion time and molecular gas fractions with cosmic time, specific star-formation rate, and stellar mass. Astrophys. J. 800, 20 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Tacconi, L. et al. PHIBSS: unified scaling relations of gas depletion time and molecular gas fractions. Astrophys. J. 853, 179 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Ebeling, H. et al. Thirty-fold: extreme gravitational lensing of a quiescent galaxy at z=1.6. Astrophys. J. 852, 7 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Newman, N. et al. Resolving quiescent galaxies at z>2. I. Search for gravitationally lensed sources and characterization of their structure, stellar populations, and line emission. Astrophys. J. 862, 125 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Toft, S. et al. A massive, dead disk galaxy in the early Universe. Nature 546, 510–513 (2017).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  18. Man, A. et al. An exquisitely deep view of quenching galaxies through the gravitational lens: Stellar population, morphology, and ionized gas. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.08338 (2021).

  19. Scoville, N. et al. ISM masses and the star formation law at Z = 1 to 6: ALMA observations of dust continuum in 145 galaxies in the COSMOS survey field. Astrophys. J. 820, 83 (2016).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  20. Tadaki, K. et al. Bulge-forming galaxies with an extended rotating disk at z ~ 2. Astrophys. J. 824, 175 (2017).

    Google Scholar 

  21. Saintonge, A. et al. xCOLD GASS: the complete IRAM 30 m legacy survey of molecular gas for galaxy evolution studies. Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser. 233, 22 (2017).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Li, Z. et al. The evolution of the interstellar medium in post-starburst galaxies. Astrophys. J. 879, 131 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Thomas, D. et al. The epochs of early-type galaxy formation as a function of environment. Astrophys. J. 621, 673 (2005).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Valentino, F. et al. Quiescent galaxies 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang and their progenitors. Astrophys. J. 889, 93 (2020).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  25. Lagos, C. et al. The origin of the atomic and molecular gas contents of early-type galaxies. II. Misaligned gas accretion. Mon. Notices R. Astron. Soc. 448, 1271–1287 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Dave, R. et al. SIMBA: cosmological simulations with black hole growth and feedback. Mon. Notices R. Astron. Soc. 486, 2827–2849 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Keres, D. et al. How do galaxies get their gas? Mon. Notices R. Astron. Soc. 363, 2–28 (2005).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Dekel, A. et al. Cold streams in early massive hot haloes as the main mode of galaxy formation. Nature 457, 451–454 (2009).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Whitaker, K. et al. Constraining the low-mass slope of the star formation sequence at 0.5 < z < 2.5. Astrophys. J. 775, 104 (2014).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  30. Ciotti, L. et al. Radiative feedback from massive black holes in elliptical galaxies: AGN flaring and central starburst fueled by recycled gas. Astrophys. J. 665, 1038–1056 (2007).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Akhshik, M. et al. Recent star formation in a massive slowly quenched lensed quiescent galaxy at z = 1.88. Astrophys. J. Lett. 907, L8 (2021).

  32. Dekel, A. & Birnboim, Y. Galaxy bimodality due to cold flows and shock heating. Mon. Notices R. Astron. Soc. 368, 2–20 (2006).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  33. Cheung, E. et al. Suppressing star formation in quiescent galaxies with supermassive black hole winds. Nature 533, 504–508 (2016).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  34. Whitaker, K. et al. Quiescent galaxies in the 3D-HST survey: spectroscopic confirmation of a large number of galaxies with relatively old stellar populations at z~2. Astrophys. J. Lett. 770, 39 (2013).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  35. Johansson, P. et al. Gravitational heating helps make massive galaxies red and dead. Astrophys. J. Lett. 697, L38–L43 (2009).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  36. Chabrier, G. Galactic stellar and substellar initial mass function. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac. 115, 763–795 (2003).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  37. Akhshik, M. et al. REQUIEM-2D methodology: spatially resolved stellar populations of massive lensed quiescent galaxies from Hubble Space Telescope 2D grism spectroscopy. Astrophys. J. 900, 184 (2020).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  38. Calzetti, D. et al. The dust content and opacity of actively star-forming galaxies. Astrophys. J. 533, 682–695 (2000).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  39. Bruzual, G., & Charlot, S. Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003. Mon. Notices R. Astron. Soc. 344, 1000–1028 (2003).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  40. Lee, B. et al. The intrinsic characteristics of galaxies on the SFR-M* plane at 1.2 < z < 4. I. The correlation between stellar age, central density, and position relative to the main sequence. Astrophys. J. 853, 131 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  41. Salmon, B. et al. Breaking the curve with CANDELS: a Bayesian approach to reveal the non-universality of the dust-attenuation law at high redshift. Astrophys. J. 827, 20 (2016).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  42. Salim, S. et al. Dust attenuation curves in the local universe: demographics and new laws for star-forming galaxies and high-redshift analogs. Astrophys. J. 859, 11 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  43. Leja, J. et al. An older, more quiescent universe from panchromatic SED fitting of the 3D-HST survey. Astrophys. J. 877, 140 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  44. Conroy, C., Gunn, J., & White, M. The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling. I. The relevance of uncertain aspects of stellar evolution and the initial mass function to the derived physical properties of galaxies. Astrophys. J. 699, 486–506 (2009).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  45. Kriek, M., & Conroy, C. The dust attenuation law in distant galaxies: evidence for variation with spectral type. Astrophys. J. Lett. 775, 16 (2013).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  46. Johansson, D., Sigurdarson, H. & Horellou, C. A LABOCA survey of submillimeter galaxies behind galaxy clusters. Astron. Astrophys. 527, 117 (2011).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  47. Greve, T. et al. Submillimeter observations of millimeter bright galaxies discovered by the South Pole Telescope. Astrophys. J. 756, 101 (2012).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  48. Scoville, N. et al. The evolution of interstellar medium mass probed by dust emission: ALMA observations at z = 0.3–2. Astrophys. J. 783, 84 (2014)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  49. Zhang, C. et al. Nearly all massive quiescent disk galaxies have a surprisingly large atomic gas reservoir. Astrophys. J. Lett. 884, 52 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  50. Sage, L. et al. The cool ISM in elliptical galaxies. I. A survey of molecular gas. Astrophys. J. 657, 232–240 (2007).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  51. Li, Q. et al. The dust-to-gas and dust-to-metal ratio in galaxies from z = 0 to 6. Mon. Notices R. Astron. Soc. 490, 1425–1436 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  52. Smercina, A. et al. After the fall: the dust and gas in E+A post-starburst galaxies. Astrophys. J. 855, 51 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  53. Morishita, T. et al. Extremely low molecular gas content in the vicinity of a red nugget galaxy at z = 1.91. Astrophys. J. 908, 163 (2021).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  54. Smith, M. et al. The Herschel Reference Survey: dust in early-type galaxies and across the Hubble sequence. Astrophys. J. 748, 123 (2012).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  55. Saintonge, A. et al. Validation of the equilibrium model for galaxy evolution to z~3 through molecular gas and dust observations of lensed star-forming galaxies. Astrophys. J. 778, 2 (2013).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  56. Franco, M. et al. GOODS-ALMA: the slow downfall of star formation in z = 2-3 massive galaxies. Astron. Astrophys. 643, 30 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  57. Tacconi, L. et al. Submillimeter galaxies at z~2: evidence for major mergers and constraints on lifetimes, IMF, and CO-H2 conversion factor. Astrophys. J. 680, 246–262 (2008).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  58. Daddi, E. et al. Very high gas fractions and extended gas reservoirs in z = 1.5 disk galaxies. Astrophys. J. 713, 686–707 (2010).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  59. Silverman, J. et al. A higher efficiency of converting gas to stars pushes galaxies at z~1.6 well above the star-forming main sequence. Astrophys. J. Lett. 812, L23 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  60. Decarli, R. et al. The ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: molecular gas reservoirs in high-redshift galaxies. Astrophys. J. 833, 70 (2016).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  61. Rudnick, G. et al. Deep CO(1-0) observations of z = 1.62 cluster galaxies with substantial molecular gas reservoirs and normal star formation efficiencies. Astrophys. J. 849, 27 (2017).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  62. Spilker, J. et al. Low gas fractions connect compact star-forming galaxies to their z~2 quiescent descendants. Astrophys. J. 832, 19 (2016).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  63. Aravena, M. et al. The ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: the nature of the faintest dusty star-forming galaxies. Astrophys. J. 901, 79 (2020).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This paper makes use of ADS/JAO.ALMA 2018.1.00276.S and ADS/JAO.ALMA 2019.1.00227.S ALMA data. ALMA is a partnership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO; representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan) and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. The NRAO is a facility of the NSF operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities. This work uses observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. K.E.W. wishes to acknowledge funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, HST-GO-14622 and HST-GO-15663. C.C.W. acknowledges support from the NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellowship grant AST-1701546 and from the NIRCam Development Contract NAS50210 from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to the University of Arizona. S.T. acknowledges support from the ERC Consolidator Grant funding scheme (project ConTExt, grant no. 648179), F.V. from the Carlsberg Foundation Research Grant CF18-0388, and G.E.M. from the Villum Fonden research grant 13160. The Cosmic Dawn Center is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation under grant no. 140. C.P. is supported by the Canadian Space Agency under a contract with NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics. M.A. acknowledges support from NASA under award no. 80NSSC19K1418. J.S.S. is a NHFP Hubble Fellow supported by NASA Hubble Fellowship grant no. HF2-51446 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. A.M. is supported by a Dunlap Fellowship at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, funded through an endowment established by the David Dunlap family and the University of Toronto. D.N. acknowledges support from the NSF via AST-1908137.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA

    Katherine E. Whitaker & Alexandra Pope

  2. Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), Copenhagen, Denmark

    Katherine E. Whitaker, Sune Toft, Desika Narayanan, Georgios E. Magdis, Gabriel B. Brammer & Francesco Valentino

  3. Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Christina C. Williams

  4. Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Lamiya Mowla

  5. Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Justin S. Spilker

  6. Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Sune Toft, Georgios E. Magdis, Gabriel B. Brammer & Francesco Valentino

  7. Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Desika Narayanan

  8. DTU-Space, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Georgios E. Magdis

  9. Astronomy Department, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Pieter G. van Dokkum

  10. Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Mohammad Akhshik

  11. Department of Physics and Astronomy and PITT PACC, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Rachel Bezanson

  12. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Joel Leja

  13. Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Joel Leja

  14. Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Joel Leja

  15. Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Allison Man

  16. Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Erica J. Nelson

  17. Université Lyon, Université Lyon 1, ENS de Lyon, CNRS, Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon UMR5574, Saint-Genis-Laval, France

    Johan Richard

  18. Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Camilla Pacifici

  19. Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Keren Sharon

Authors
  1. Katherine E. Whitaker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Christina C. Williams
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Lamiya Mowla
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Justin S. Spilker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Sune Toft
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Desika Narayanan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Alexandra Pope
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Georgios E. Magdis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Pieter G. van Dokkum
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Mohammad Akhshik
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Rachel Bezanson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Gabriel B. Brammer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  13. Joel Leja
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  14. Allison Man
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  15. Erica J. Nelson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  16. Johan Richard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  17. Camilla Pacifici
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  18. Keren Sharon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  19. Francesco Valentino
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

K.E.W. proposed and carried out the observations, conducted the analysis, and wrote the majority of the manuscript. C.C.W. performed the weighted stack of the data, helped to create Figs. 2 and 3, and edited the main text of the manuscript. L.M. performed direct analysis of the ALMA flux densities and created the images in Fig. 1. J.S.S. carried out the reduction and direct analysis of the raw ALMA data. M.A. reduced the HST images, and M.A. and J.L. performed a stellar population synthesis analysis. G.E.M., A.P., S.T. and F.V. helped to interpret the millimetre data and contributed to the dust and gas mass analysis. D.N. helped to interpret the data in the context of cosmological simulation models. All authors, including R.B., G.B.B., J.L., A.M., E.J.N., C.P., K.S. and P.G.v.D., contributed to the overall interpretation of the results and aspects of the analysis and writing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katherine E. Whitaker.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature thanks Claudia Maraston and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Source data

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Whitaker, K.E., Williams, C.C., Mowla, L. et al. Quenching of star formation from a lack of inflowing gas to galaxies. Nature 597, 485–488 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03806-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03806-7

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing