Reconstructing the Assembly of Massive Galaxies. III: Quiescent Galaxies Loose Angular Momentum as They Evolve in a Mass-dependent Fashion

TL;DR

This study investigates how massive quiescent galaxies lose angular momentum over time, revealing a mass-dependent evolution where less massive galaxies retain rotation longer, while more massive ones become dispersion-supported.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the mass-dependent dynamical evolution of quiescent galaxies post-quenching, highlighting the role of merging and accretion in angular momentum loss.

Findings

Less massive galaxies retain significant rotation long after quenching.

More massive galaxies gradually lose angular momentum and become dispersion-supported.

The evolution suggests early formation of fast and slow rotators by z~0.8.

Abstract

We study the evolution of stellar kinematics of a sample of 952 massive quiescent galaxies with $M_*>10^{10.5}M_\odot$ at $0.6<z<1$. Utilizing spatially integrated spectroscopy from the LEGA-C survey, we focus on the relationship between the observed integrated stellar velocity dispersion ($\sigma^\prime_{star}$) and the morphological axial ratio ($q$), and its variation with the stellar age and mass of quiescent galaxies. For the youngest quiescent galaxies, regardless of stellar mass, $\sigma^\prime_{star}$ decreases with increasing $q$, a trend that is consistent with a system having significant rotation and hence suggests that massive galaxies still retain significant amount of angular momentum in the aftermath of quenching. As they continue to evolve, the variation of the $\sigma^\prime_{star}$-$q$ relationship depends on stellar mass. For quiescent galaxies with $M_*<10^{11.3}M_\odot$, $\sigma^\prime_{star}$ decreases with $q$ in all stellar-age bins, suggesting that the quiescent populations of this mass regime retain significant rotation even long time after quenching. In contrast, for more massive quiescent galaxies with $M_*>10^{11.3}M_\odot$, the relationship between $\sigma^\prime_{star}$ and $q$ becomes significantly flattened with increasing stellar age. This indicates that, as the very massive galaxy populations continue to evolve after quenching, angular momentum gradually reduces, which eventually transforms them into velocity-dispersion supported systems. We suggest that incoherent, continuous merging and accretion events onto the galaxies are the main drivers of the observed mass-dependent, posting-quenching dynamical evolution, because more massive galaxies are more likely to undergo such interactions. We are witnessing the early formation epoch of fast and slow rotators at $z \sim 0.8$, when the Universe was only half of its age nowadays.