Star formation concentration as a tracer of environmental quenching in action: a study of the Eagle and C-Eagle simulations

TL;DR

This study investigates how star formation concentration relates to environmental quenching in galaxy simulations and observations, revealing redshift-dependent quenching timescales and mechanisms, with outside-in quenching dominant at low redshift.

Contribution

It introduces the star-formation concentration index as a proxy for satellite galaxy quenching duration and characterizes its evolution across redshifts in simulations and observations.

Findings

Higher fraction of low C-index galaxies in dense environments at z=0-0.5.

Outside-in quenching observed at low redshift with long timescales.

Faster, more uniform quenching at higher redshifts without outside-in signatures.

Abstract

We study environmental quenching in the Eagle}/C-Eagle cosmological hydrodynamic simulations over the last 11 Gyr (i.e. $z=0-2$). The simulations are compared with observations from the SAMI Galaxy Survey at $z=0$. We focus on satellite galaxies in galaxy groups and clusters ($10^{12}\,\rm M_{\odot}$ $\lesssim$ $M_{200}$ < $3 \times 10^{15}\, \rm M_{\odot}$). A star-formation concentration index [$C$-index $= \log_{10}(r_\mathrm{50,SFR} / r_\mathrm{50,rband})$] is defined, which measures how concentrated star formation is relative to the stellar distribution. Both Eagle/C-Eagle and SAMI show a higher fraction of galaxies with low $C$-index in denser environments at $z=0-0.5$. Low $C$-index galaxies are found below the SFR-$M_{\star}$ main sequence (MS), and display a declining specific star formation rate (sSFR) with increasing radii, consistent with ``outside-in'' environmental quenching. Additionally, we show that $C$-index can be used as a proxy for how long galaxies have been satellites. These trends become weaker at increasing redshift and are absent by $z=1-2$. We define a quenching timescale $t_{\rm quench}$ as how long it takes satellites to transition from the MS to the quenched population. We find that simulated galaxies experiencing ``outside-in'' environmental quenching at low redshift ($z=0\sim0.5$) have a long quenching timescale (median $t_{\rm quench}$ > 2 Gyr). The simulated galaxies at higher redshift ($z=0.7\sim2$) experience faster quenching (median $t_{\rm quench}$ < 2Gyr). At $z\gtrsim 1-2$ galaxies undergoing environmental quenching have decreased sSFR across the entire galaxy with no ``outside-in'' quenching signatures and a narrow range of $C$-index, showing that on average environmental quenching acts differently than at $z\lesssim 1$.