The Astrophysical Journal Letters (Jan 2025)
Recent Star Formation in 0.5 < z < 1.5 Quiescent Galaxies
- Michael J. Rutkowski,
- Bonnabelle Zabelle,
- Tyler Hagen,
- Anahita Alavi,
- Seth Cohen,
- Christopher Conselice,
- Norman Grogin,
- Yicheng Guo,
- Matthew Hayes,
- Sugata Kaviraj,
- Anton Koekemoer,
- Ray A. Lucas,
- Kameswara Bharadwaj Mantha,
- Alec Martin,
- Vihang Mehta,
- Bahram Mobasher,
- Nimish Hathi,
- Zhiyuan Ji,
- Kalina V. Nedkova,
- Robert O’Connell,
- Marc Rafelski,
- Claudia Scarlata,
- Harry I. Teplitz,
- Xin Wang,
- Rogier Windhorst,
- L. Y. Aaron Yung,
- The UVCANDELS Team
Affiliations
- Michael J. Rutkowski
- ORCiD
- Minnesota State University-Mankato , Department of Physics & Astronomy, Trafton Science Center North 141, Mankato, MN 56001, USA ; [email protected]
- Bonnabelle Zabelle
- ORCiD
- Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
- Tyler Hagen
- ORCiD
- University of Utah , Department of Physics & Astronomy, 115 S. 1400 E., Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0830, USA
- Anahita Alavi
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Seth Cohen
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
- Christopher Conselice
- ORCiD
- School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Nottingham , University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
- Norman Grogin
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Yicheng Guo
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri , Columbia, MO 65211, USA
- Matthew Hayes
- ORCiD
- Stockholm University , Department of Astronomy and Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics, SE-10691, Stockholm, Sweden
- Sugata Kaviraj
- ORCiD
- Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire , Hatfield, AL10 9AB, UK
- Anton Koekemoer
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Ray A. Lucas
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Kameswara Bharadwaj Mantha
- ORCiD
- Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
- Alec Martin
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri , Columbia, MO 65211, USA
- Vihang Mehta
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Bahram Mobasher
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California , Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA
- Nimish Hathi
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Zhiyuan Ji
- University of Massachusetts Amherst, 710 N. Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01003-9305, USA
- Kalina V. Nedkova
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA; Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Robert O’Connell
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia , Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA
- Marc Rafelski
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Claudia Scarlata
- ORCiD
- Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
- Harry I. Teplitz
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Xin Wang
- ORCiD
- School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) , Beijing 100049, People’s Republic of China; National Astronomical Observatories , Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, People’s Republic of China; Institute for Frontiers in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Beijing Normal University , Beijing 102206, People's Republic of China
- Rogier Windhorst
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
- L. Y. Aaron Yung
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- The UVCANDELS Team
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/adbe7c
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 983,
no. 2
p. L32
Abstract
Observations of massive, quiescent galaxies reveal a relatively uniform evolution: following prolific star formation in the early Universe, these galaxies quench and transition to their characteristic quiescent state in the local Universe. The debate on the relative role and frequency of the process(es) driving this evolution is robust. In this Letter, we identify 0.5 ≲ z ≲ 1.5 massive, quiescent galaxies in the Hubble Space Telescope/UVCANDELS extragalactic deep fields using traditional color selection methods and model their spectral energy distributions, incorporating novel UV images. This analysis reveals ∼15% of massive, quiescent galaxies have experienced minor, recent star formation (<10% of total stellar mass within the past ∼1 Gyr). We find only a marginal, positive correlation between the probability for recent star formation and a measure of the richness of the local environment from a statistical analysis. Assuming the recent star formation present in these quiescent galaxies is physically linked to the local environment, these results suggest only a minor role for dynamic external processes (galaxy mergers and interactions) in the formation and evolution of these galaxies at this redshift.
Keywords
