Galaxy Quenching with Mass Growth History of Galaxy Groups and Clusters: The Importance of Post-Processing

TL;DR

This study uses cosmological simulations to show that galaxy quenching predominantly occurs after satellites fall into their hosts, with host mass and infall timing significantly influencing quenching efficiency.

Contribution

It demonstrates that post-processing is the main quenching mechanism and highlights the roles of host mass and satellite infall timing in galaxy quenching.

Findings

Quenched satellite fraction increases with host mass.

Post-processing dominates over pre-processing in quenching.

Early-infall satellites have higher quenched fractions.

Abstract

We investigate the fraction of quenched satellite galaxies in host galaxy groups and clusters using TNG300 in the IllustrisTNG cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulations. Simulations show that most satellites are quenched after they fall into their final hosts: post-processing is a more dominant mechanism of galaxy quenching than pre-processing. We find the fraction of quenched satellites at $z=0$ increases with host mass, which implies that more massive hosts have higher quenching efficiency because more massive hosts have more massive groups infalling. Furthermore, we find that hosts that have many early-infall satellites show a higher fraction of quenched satellites at $z=0$ than those having many late-infall satellites, which results in a scatter of the quenched fraction of satellites in a given mass range of hosts at $z=0$. Our results highlight the significance of the mass of hosts and the different infall times of satellites in understanding galaxy quenching.