Reignited star formation in dwarf galaxies quenched during reionization

TL;DR

This study models how stochastic mass assembly and cosmic reionization can explain delayed star formation in dwarf galaxies, challenging previous expectations within the LCDM cosmology framework.

Contribution

It introduces a semi-analytic model incorporating stochastic halo growth and reionization effects to explain late star formation in irregular dwarf galaxies.

Findings

Reionization suppresses baryonic accretion in some dwarf galaxies.

Stochastic mass assembly leads to delayed star formation episodes.

Reborn galaxies exhibit star formation histories similar to Leo A and Aquarius.

Abstract

Irregular dwarf galaxies of the Local Group have very varied properties and star formation histories. Some of them formed the majority of their stars very late compared to the others. Extreme examples are Leo A and Aquarius which reached the peak of star formation at $z<1$ ( > 6 Gyr after BB). This fact seemingly challenges the LCDM cosmology because the dark matter halos of these galaxies on average should assemble the majority of their masses before z~2 (<3 Gyr after BB). In this work we investigate whether the delayed star formation histories of some irregular dwarf galaxies could be explained purely by the stochasticity of their mass assembly histories coupled with the effect of cosmic reionization. We develop a semi-analytic model to follow the accretion of baryonic matter, star formation and stellar feedback in dark matter halos with present day virial masses 10^9 M_Sun < M < 10^11 M_Sun and with different stochastic growth histories obtained using the PINOCCHIO code based on Lagrangian perturbation theory. We obtain the distributions of observable parameters and the evolution histories for these galaxies. Accretion of baryonic matter is strongly suppressed after the epoch of reionization in some models but they continue to accrete dark matter and eventually reach enough mass for accretion of baryonic matter to begin again. These "reborn" model galaxies show very similar delayed star formation histories to those of Leo A and Aquarius. We find that the stochasticity caused by mass assembly histories is enhanced in systems with virial masses ~10^10 M_Sun because of their sensitivity to the photoionizing intergalactic radiation field after the epoch of reionization. This results in qualitatively different star formation histories in late- and early-forming galaxies and it might explain the peculiar star formation histories of irregular dwarf galaxies such as Leo A and Aquarius.