Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008aas...212.8803k&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #212, #88.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.267
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We present the first large-scale study of E+A (post-starburst) galaxies that incorporates photometry in the ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths from the recent GALEX mission. We find that the starburst that creates the E+A galaxy typically takes place within the last Gyr and creates a high fraction (20-60 per cent) of the stellar mass in the remnant, over very short time-scales (less than 0.1 Gyrs). We find a tight correlation between the luminosity of our E+A galaxies and the implied star formation rate (SFR) during the starburst. While low-luminosity E+As [M(z) > -20] exhibit implied SFRs of less than 50 MSun yr^-1, their luminous counterparts [M(z) < -22] show SFRs greater than 300 and as high as 2000 MSun yr^-1, suggesting that luminous and ultra-luminous infrared galaxies in the low-redshift Universe could be the progenitors of massive nearby E+A galaxies. We perform a comprehensive study of the quenching mechanism that truncates the starburst in E+A systems. We find that, for galaxies less massive than 10^10 MSun, the quenching efficiency decreases as the galaxy mass increases. However, for galaxies more massive than 10^10 MSun, this trend is reversed and the quenching efficiency increases with galaxy mass. Noting that the mass threshold at which this reversal occurs is in excellent agreement with the mass above which active galactic nuclei (AGN) become significantly more abundant in nearby galaxies, we use simple energetic arguments to show that the bimodal behaviour of the quenching efficiency is remarkably consistent with AGN and supernovae (SN) being the principal sources of negative feedback above and below M 10^10 MSun respectively. In particular, our results provide observational evidence for strong negative feedback from AGN, as envisaged in contemporary galaxy formation models.
SK acknowledges a Leverhulme Early-Career Fellowship, a BIPAC fellowship and a Junior Research Fellowship from Worcester College, Oxford.
Kaviraj Sugata
Kirkby L.
Sarzi Marc
Silk Joseph
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