The quenching of star formation in dwarf galaxies: new perspectives from deep-wide surveys

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Kaviraj, S., Lazar, I., Watkins, A. E., Laigle, C., Martin, G., Jackson, R. A.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Kaviraj, S.
Lazar, I.
Watkins, A. E.
Laigle, C.
Martin, G.
Jackson, R. A.
author_facet Kaviraj, S.
Lazar, I.
Watkins, A. E.
Laigle, C.
Martin, G.
Jackson, R. A.
contents Dwarf galaxies dominate the galaxy number density, making them critical to our understanding of galaxy evolution. However, typical dwarfs are too faint to be visible outside the very local Universe in past surveys like the SDSS, which offer large footprints but are shallow. Dwarfs in such surveys have relatively high star formation rates, which boost their luminosity, making them detectable in shallow surveys, but also biased and potentially unrepresentative of dwarfs as a whole. Here, we use deep data to perform an unbiased statistical study of ~7,000 nearby (z<0.25) dwarfs (10^8 MSun < M < 10^9.5 MSun) in the COSMOS field which, at these redshifts, is a relatively low-density field. At z~0.05, ~40 per cent of dwarfs in low-density environments are red/quenched, falling to ~30 per cent by z~0.25. Red dwarfs reside closer to nodes, filaments and massive galaxies. Proximity to a massive galaxy appears to be more important in determining whether a dwarf is red, rather than simply its distance from nodes and filaments or the mean density of its local environment. Interestingly, around half of the red dwarfs reside outside the virial radii of massive galaxies and around a third of those also inhabit regions in the lower 50 per cent in density percentile (i.e. regions of very low ambient density). Around half of the red dwarf population is, therefore, quenched by mechanisms unrelated to environment, which are likely to be internal processes such as stellar and AGN feedback.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_02656
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The quenching of star formation in dwarf galaxies: new perspectives from deep-wide surveys
Kaviraj, S.
Lazar, I.
Watkins, A. E.
Laigle, C.
Martin, G.
Jackson, R. A.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Dwarf galaxies dominate the galaxy number density, making them critical to our understanding of galaxy evolution. However, typical dwarfs are too faint to be visible outside the very local Universe in past surveys like the SDSS, which offer large footprints but are shallow. Dwarfs in such surveys have relatively high star formation rates, which boost their luminosity, making them detectable in shallow surveys, but also biased and potentially unrepresentative of dwarfs as a whole. Here, we use deep data to perform an unbiased statistical study of ~7,000 nearby (z<0.25) dwarfs (10^8 MSun < M < 10^9.5 MSun) in the COSMOS field which, at these redshifts, is a relatively low-density field. At z~0.05, ~40 per cent of dwarfs in low-density environments are red/quenched, falling to ~30 per cent by z~0.25. Red dwarfs reside closer to nodes, filaments and massive galaxies. Proximity to a massive galaxy appears to be more important in determining whether a dwarf is red, rather than simply its distance from nodes and filaments or the mean density of its local environment. Interestingly, around half of the red dwarfs reside outside the virial radii of massive galaxies and around a third of those also inhabit regions in the lower 50 per cent in density percentile (i.e. regions of very low ambient density). Around half of the red dwarf population is, therefore, quenched by mechanisms unrelated to environment, which are likely to be internal processes such as stellar and AGN feedback.
title The quenching of star formation in dwarf galaxies: new perspectives from deep-wide surveys
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02656