The fate of the interstellar medium in early-type galaxies. IV. The impact of stellar feedback, mergers, and black holes on the cold ISM in simulated galaxies

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to explore how stellar feedback, mergers, and black holes influence the removal of cold gas and dust in early-type galaxies, shedding light on the quenching process of star formation.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the mechanisms driving cold ISM removal in simulated early-type galaxies, validating simulation results against observations and highlighting the roles of supernova shocks, stellar feedback, and black hole activity.

Findings

Dust and HI removal timescales match observational data.

Dust-to-stellar mass ratio declines with stellar age, consistent with observations.

Merger events increase bulge-to-total ratio and black hole mass, affecting star formation.

Abstract

Removing cold interstellar medium (ISM) from a galaxy is central to quenching star formation. However, the exact mechanism of this process remains unclear. The objective of this work is to find the mechanism responsible for dust and gas removal in simulated early-type galaxies (ETGs). A statistically significant sample of massive (M_*>$10^{10}$M$_\odot$), simulated ETG in a redshift range of 0.02--0.32 is studied in the context of its ISM properties. In particular, we investigate the cold dust and gas removal timescales, the cold gas inflows, and their relation with black hole (BH) mass. We also investigate the evolution of galaxies in the dust vs. star formation rate (SFR) plane and the influence of merger events. We find agreement with previous observational works considering the timescales of dust and HI removal from ETGs. When considering the dust-to-stellar mass ratio as a function of time in simulations, we recovered a similar decline as in the observational sample as a function of stellar age, validating its use for timing the ISM decline. Moreover, we recover the observed relation between dust mass and SFR for actively star-forming galaxies as well as for passive ETGs. We also show that starburst galaxies form their own sequence on the dust vs. SFR plot in a form $\log(M_{\rm dust, SB})= 0.913\times \log({\rm SFR}) + 6.533$ with $2\sigma$ scatter of 0.32. Finally, we find that type II supernova reverse shocks dominate the dust destruction at the early stages of ETG evolution, while at later times stellar feedback becomes more important. We show that merger events lead to morphological transformations by increasing the bulge-to-total stellar mass ratio followed by an increase in BH masses. The BH feedback resulting from radio mode accretion prevents the hot halo gas from cooling, indirectly leading to a decrease in the SFR.