Setton, David
(2023)
The When and How of Rapid Quenching at Intermediate-Redshift.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
This is the latest version of this item.
Abstract
One of the most fundamental observations that underpins the study of galaxy evolution is the bimodality between star forming and quiescent galaxies. In the local universe and beyond, the most massive galaxies in tend to be "red-and-dead." Despite the clear evidence for this "quenching" of star formation at early cosmic times, the physical mechanism that drives this transformation is still undetermined. Models invoke a wide range of prescriptions for feedback that vary wildly due to the lack of constraints from data. In this thesis, I provide such constraints by studying samples of young quiescent, or post-starburst, galaxies, with spectroscopy that allows for the precise measurement of their star formation histories.
First, I present work studying the spatially resolved spectroscopy of 6 of the bright post-starburst galaxies using Gemini/GMOS. I find that the majority of the galaxies studied exhibit flat gradients in Hdelta absorption, indicating that their stellar populations are roughly uniform and young out to ~5 kpc. The second study in this work focuses on the structures of post-starburst galaxies as traced by rest-frame optical imaging. I find that post-starburst galaxies have compact sizes, in line with previous work, and that they show very little evolution in their size as a function of the time since quenching. Taken together, these two results paint a picture where post-starburst galaxies have compact star forming progenitors that shut off their star formation uniformly. In the final work of this thesis, I place constraints on the rate of quenching. Using deep spectroscopy from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument Survey Validation sample, I measure star formation histories for ~17000 luminous red galaxies. I find a significant increase in the number density of post-starburst samples between z=0.4 and z=0.8. However, I find that true rapid quenchers--galaxies that formed >50% of their stellar mass in the Gyr before quenching--are essentially absent at z<1 and only were a significant part of the galaxy population at earlier cosmic times. This motivates the push of spectroscopic surveys to higher redshift, where complete surveys will have the chance to quantify the rate of rapid quenching when it is occurring.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
6 September 2023 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
8 June 2023 |
| Approval Date: |
6 September 2023 |
| Submission Date: |
23 June 2023 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
175 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Astronomy
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Physics |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
post-starburst galaxies, quenching, galaxy evolution, galaxy quenching, rapid quenching, galaxy structures, star formation history |
| Date Deposited: |
07 Sep 2023 01:17 |
| Last Modified: |
07 Sep 2023 01:17 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/45039 |
Available Versions of this Item
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The When and How of Rapid Quenching at Intermediate-Redshift. (deposited 07 Sep 2023 01:17)
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