The SAMI Galaxy Survey: Using concentrated star-formation and stellar population ages to understand environmental quenching

TL;DR

This study uses the SAMI Galaxy Survey to analyze how environmental factors like halo mass influence star-formation concentration and stellar ages, providing insights into the outside-in quenching process in different galaxy environments.

Contribution

It introduces a star-formation concentration index to identify outside-in quenching and compares stellar ages across environments, revealing different quenching time-scales.

Findings

Higher fraction of SF-concentrated galaxies in massive halos.

Outside-in quenching is more gradual in groups, rapid in clusters.

Older stellar ages at large radii in high-mass groups indicate slow quenching.

Abstract

We study environmental quenching using the spatial distribution of current star-formation and stellar population ages with the full SAMI Galaxy Survey. By using a star-formation concentration index [C-index, defined as log10(r_{50,Halpha}/r_{50,cont})], we separate our sample into regular galaxies (C-index>-0.2) and galaxies with centrally concentrated star-formation (SF-concentrated; C-index<-0.2). Concentrated star-formation is a potential indicator of galaxies currently undergoing `outside-in' quenching. Our environments cover ungrouped galaxies, low-mass groups (M_200<10^12.5 M_sun), high-mass groups (M_200 in the range 10^{12.5-14} M_sun) and clusters (M_200>10^14 M_sun). We find the fraction of SF-concentrated galaxies increases as halo mass increases with 9\pm2 per cent, 8\pm3 per cent, 19\pm4 per cent and 29\pm4 per cent for ungrouped galaxies, low-mass groups, high-mass groups and clusters, respectively. We interpret these results as evidence for `outside-in' quenching in groups and clusters. To investigate the quenching time-scale in SF-concentrated galaxies, we calculate light-weighted age (Age_L) and mass-weighted age (Age_M) using full spectral fitting, as well as the Dn4000 and Hdelta_A indices. We assume that the average galaxy age radial profile before entering a group or cluster is similar to ungrouped regular galaxies. At large radius (1-2 R_e), SF-concentrated galaxies in high-mass groups have older ages than ungrouped regular galaxies with an age difference of 1.83\pm0.38 Gyr for Age_L and 1.34\pm0.56 Gyr for Age_M. This suggests that while `outside-in' quenching can be effective in groups, the process will not quickly quench the entire galaxy. In contrast, the ages at 1-2 R_e of cluster SF-concentrated galaxies and ungrouped regular galaxies are consistent (0.19\pm0.21 Gyr for Age_L, 0.40\pm0.61 Gyr for Age_M), suggesting the quenching process must be rapid.