The separate effect of halo mass and stellar mass on the evolution of massive disk galaxies

TL;DR

This study investigates how the evolution of massive disk galaxies depends on their stellar and halo masses, revealing that both influence their chemical enrichment and star formation history, especially in central regions, supporting a halo-driven formation scenario.

Contribution

It provides a spatially resolved analysis demonstrating the separate effects of halo and stellar mass on galaxy evolution, emphasizing the importance of halo assembly history.

Findings

Central galaxy evolution depends on both stellar and halo mass.

Galaxies with higher stellar mass enrich chemically earlier.

Halo mass influences star-formation timescales and chemical enrichment delays.

Abstract

We analyse a sample of massive disk galaxies selected from the SDSS-IV/MaNGA survey to investigate how the evolution of these galaxies depends on their stellar and halo masses. We applied a semi-analytic spectral fitting approach to the data from different regions in the galaxies to derive several of their key physical properties. From the best-fit model results, together with direct observables such as morphology, colour, and the Mgb/$\langle$Fe$\rangle$ index ratio measured within $1 R_{\rm e}$, we find that for central galaxies both their stellar and halo masses have a significant influence in their evolution. For a given halo mass, galaxies with higher stellar mass accumulate their stellar mass and become chemically enriched earlier than those with smaller stellar mass. Furthermore, at a given stellar mass, galaxies living in more massive halos have longer star-formation timescales and are delayed in becoming chemically enriched. In contrast, the evolution of massive satellite galaxies is mostly determined by their stellar mass. The results indicate that both the assembled halo mass and the halo assembly history impact the evolution of central galaxies. Our spatially resolved analysis indicates that only the galaxy properties in the central region ($0.0$--$0.5 R_{\rm e}$) show the dependencies described above. This fact supports a halo-driven formation scenario since the galaxies' central regions are more likely to contain old stars formed along with the halo itself, keeping a memory of the halo formation process.