The MAGPI Survey: the evolution and drivers of gas turbulence in intermediate-redshift galaxies

TL;DR

This study investigates how ionised gas turbulence in star-forming galaxies evolves from redshift 1 to 0.3, finding that star-formation rate surface density is a key driver across this period, with additional factors like gas accretion also contributing.

Contribution

First consistent method to compare gas velocity dispersions across redshifts, accounting for spatial structure and beam smearing, revealing the dominant role of star-formation activity in driving turbulence.

Findings

Gas velocity dispersion correlates strongly with star-formation rate surface density.

Average gas velocity dispersion is similar at the same $ m \Sigma_{SFR}$ across different redshifts.

Gas transportation and accretion also contribute to gas turbulence, especially at lower redshifts.

Abstract

We measure the ionised gas velocity dispersions of star-forming galaxies in the MAGPI survey ($z\sim0.3$) and compare them with galaxies in the SAMI ($z\sim0.05$) and KROSS ($z\sim1$) surveys to investigate how the ionised gas velocity dispersion evolves. For the first time, we use a consistent method that forward models galaxy kinematics from $z=0$ to $z=1$. This method accounts for spatial substructure in emission line flux and beam smearing. We investigate the correlation between gas velocity dispersion and galaxy properties to understand the mechanisms that drive gas turbulence. We find that in both MAGPI and SAMI galaxies, the gas velocity dispersion more strongly correlates with the star-formation rate surface density ($\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$) than with a variety of other physical properties, and the average gas velocity dispersion is similar, at the same $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$, for SAMI, MAGPI and KROSS galaxies. The results indicate that mechanisms related to $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ could be the dominant driver of gas turbulence from $z\sim1$ to $z\sim0$, for example, stellar feedback and/or gravitational instability. The gas velocity dispersion of MAGPI galaxies is also correlated with the non-rotational motion of the gas, illustrating that in addition to star-formation feedback, gas transportation and accretion may also contribute to the gas velocity dispersion for galaxies at $z\sim 0.3$. KROSS galaxies only have a moderate correlation between gas velocity dispersion and $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ and a higher scatter of gas velocity dispersion with respect to $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$, in agreement with the suggestion that other mechanisms, such as gas transportation and accretion, are relatively more important at higher redshift galaxies.