What turns galaxies off? The different morphologies of star-forming and quiescent galaxies since z~2 from CANDELS

TL;DR

This study investigates how galaxy structures and star formation activity have evolved since z~2, revealing that bulge prominence correlates with quiescence and supporting the role of AGN feedback in galaxy quenching.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of galaxy structural evolution and the relationship between bulge features and star formation quenching over 10 billion years.

Findings

Quiescent galaxies have concentrated light profiles and grow in number density since z=2.2.

Quiescence correlates strongly with Sersic index, velocity dispersion, and surface density.

Many bulge-dominated galaxies still exhibit significant star formation.

Abstract

We use HST/WFC3 imaging from the CANDELS Multicycle Treasury Survey, in conjunction with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, to explore the evolution of galactic structure for galaxies with stellar masses >3e10M_sun from z=2.2 to the present epoch, a time span of 10Gyr. We explore the relationship between rest-frame optical color, stellar mass, star formation activity and galaxy structure. We confirm the dramatic increase from z=2.2 to the present day in the number density of non-star-forming galaxies above 3e10M_sun reported by others. We further find that the vast majority of these quiescent systems have concentrated light profiles, as parametrized by the Sersic index, and the population of concentrated galaxies grows similarly rapidly. We examine the joint distribution of star formation activity, Sersic index, stellar mass, inferred velocity dispersion, and stellar surface density. Quiescence correlates poorly with stellar mass at all z<2.2. Quiescence correlates well with Sersic index at all redshifts. Quiescence correlates well with `velocity dispersion' and stellar surface density at z>1.3, and somewhat less well at lower redshifts. Yet, there is significant scatter between quiescence and galaxy structure: while the vast majority of quiescent galaxies have prominent bulges, many of them have significant disks, and a number of bulge-dominated galaxies have significant star formation. Noting the rarity of quiescent galaxies without prominent bulges, we argue that a prominent bulge (and perhaps, by association, a supermassive black hole) is an important condition for quenching star formation on galactic scales over the last 10Gyr, in qualitative agreement with the AGN feedback paradigm.