Comparison of stellar populations in simulated and real post-starburst galaxies in MaNGA
Date
10/2020Author
Funder
Grant ID
ERC-2012-StG-20111012
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Abstract
Recent integral field spectroscopic (IFS) surveys have revealed radial gradients in the optical spectral indices of post-starburst galaxies, which can be used to constrain their formation histories. We study the spectral indices of post-processed mock IFS datacubes of binary merger simulations, carefully matched to the properties of the MaNGA IFS survey, with a variety of black hole feedback models, progenitor galaxies, orbits and mass ratios. Based on our simulation sample, we find that only major mergers on prograde-prograde or retrograde-prograde orbits in combination with a mechanical black hole feedback model can form galaxies with weak enough ongoing star formation, and therefore absent Hα emission, to be selected by traditional PSB selection methods. We find strong fluctuations in nebular emission line strengths, even within the PSB phase, suggesting that Hα selected PSBs are only a subsample of the underlying population. The global PSB population can be more robustly identified using stellar continuum-based approaches. The difficulty in reproducing the very young PSBs in simulations potentially indicates that new sub-resolution star formation recipes are required to properly model the process of star formation quenching. In our simulations, we find that the starburst peaks at the same time at all radii, but is stronger and more prolonged in the inner regions. This results in a strong time evolution in the radial gradients of the spectral indices which can be used to estimate the age of the starburst without reliance on detailed star formation histories from spectral synthesis models.
Citation
Zheng , Y , Wild , V , Lahén , N , Johansson , P H , Law , D , Weaver , J R & Jimenez , N 2020 , ' Comparison of stellar populations in simulated and real post-starburst galaxies in MaNGA ' , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , vol. 498 , no. 1 , pp. 1259–1277 . https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2358
Publication
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1365-2966Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2020 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2358.
Description
YZ acknowledges support of a China Scholarship Council – University of St Andrews Scholarship. VW and NJ acknowledge support from the European Research Council Starting Grant SEDMorph (P.I. V. Wild). NL and PHJ acknowledge support by the European Research Council via ERC Consolidator Grant KETJU (no. 818930).Collections
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