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Abstract Isolated dwarf galaxies usually exhibit robust star formation but satellite dwarf galaxies are often devoid of young stars, even in Milky Way–mass groups. Dwarf galaxies thus offer an important laboratory of the environmental processes that cease star formation. We explore the balance of quiescent and star-forming galaxies (quenched fractions) for a sample of ∼400 satellite galaxies around 30 Local Volume hosts from the Exploration of Local VolumE Satellites (ELVES) Survey. We present quenched fractions as a function of satellite stellar mass, projected radius, and host halo mass, to conclude that overall, the quenched fractions are similar to the Milky Way, dropping below 50% at satelliteM*≈ 108M⊙. We may see hints that quenching is less efficient at larger radii. Through comparison with the semianalytic modeling codeSatGen, we are also able to infer average quenching times as a function of satellite mass in host halo-mass bins. There is a gradual increase in quenching time with satellite stellar mass rather than the abrupt change from rapid to slow quenching that has been inferred for the Milky Way. We also generally infer longer average quenching times than recent hydrodynamical simulations. Our results are consistent with models that suggest a wide range of quenching times are possible via ram pressure stripping, depending on the clumpiness of the circumgalactic medium, the orbits of the satellites, and the degree of earlier preprocessing.
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The First Quenched Galaxies: When and How?
Abstract Many quiescent galaxies discovered in the early Universe by JWST raise fundamental questions on when and how these galaxies became and stayed quenched. Making use of the latest version of the semianalytic model GAEA that provides good agreement with the observed quenched fractions up toz∼ 3, we make predictions for the expected fractions of quiescent galaxies up toz∼ 7 and analyze the main quenching mechanism. We find that in a simulated box of 685 Mpc on a side, the first quenched massive (M⋆∼ 1011M⊙), Milky Way–mass, and low-mass (M⋆∼ 109.5M⊙) galaxies appear atz∼ 4.5,z∼ 6.2, and beforez= 7, respectively. Most quenched galaxies identified at early redshifts remain quenched for more than 1 Gyr. Independently of galaxy stellar mass, the dominant quenching mechanism at high redshift is accretion disk feedback (quasar winds) from a central massive black hole, which is triggered by mergers in massive and Milky Way–mass galaxies and by disk instabilities in low-mass galaxies. Environmental stripping becomes increasingly more important at lower redshift.
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- PAR ID:
- 10501812
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.3847
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal Letters
- Volume:
- 966
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2041-8205
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. L2
- Size(s):
- Article No. L2
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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