J/ApJ/926/89 SQuIGGLE survey: SDSS 0.5<z≤0.9 post-starburst gal. (Suess+, 2022)
SQuIGGLE: Studying Quenching in Intermediate-z Galaxies-Gas, anguLar momentum,
and Evolution.
Suess K.A., Kriek M., Bezanson R., Greene J.E., Setton D., Spilker J.S.,
Feldmann R., Goulding A.D., Johnson B.D., Leja J., Narayanan D.,
Hall-Hooper K., Hunt Q., Lower S., Verrico M.
<Astrophys. J., 926, 89 (2022)>
=2022ApJ...926...89S 2022ApJ...926...89S
ADC_Keywords: Galaxies, spectra; Redshifts; Velocity dispersion;
Equivalent widths; Abundances; Reddening; Spectra, optical
Keywords: Post-starburst galaxies ; Galaxy quenching ; Quenched galaxies ;
Galaxy evolution ; Galaxy ages
Abstract:
We describe the Studying Quenching in Intermediate-z Galaxies: Gas,
anguLar momentum, and Evolution (SQuIGGLE) survey of
intermediate-redshift post-starburst galaxies. We leverage the large
sky coverage of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to select ∼1300 recently
quenched galaxies at 0.5<z≤0.9 based on their unique spectral shapes.
These bright, intermediate-redshift galaxies are ideal laboratories to
study the physics responsible for the rapid quenching of star
formation: they are distant enough to be useful analogs for
high-redshift quenching galaxies, but low enough redshift that
multiwavelength follow-up observations are feasible with modest
telescope investments. We use the Prospector code to infer the stellar
population properties and nonparametric star formation histories
(SFHs) of all galaxies in the sample. We find that SQuIGGLE galaxies
are both very massive (M*∼1011.25M☉) and quenched, with
inferred star formation rates ≲1M☉/yr, more than an order of
magnitude below the star-forming main sequence. The best-fit SFHs
confirm that these galaxies recently quenched a major burst of star
formation: >75% of SQuIGGLE galaxies formed at least a quarter of
their total stellar mass in the recent burst, which ended just ∼200Myr
before observation. We find that SQuIGGLE galaxies are on average
younger and more burst-dominated than most other z≲1 post-starburst
galaxy samples. This large sample of bright post-starburst galaxies at
intermediate redshift opens a wide range of studies into the quenching
process. In particular, the full SQuIGGLE survey will investigate the
molecular gas reservoirs, morphologies, kinematics, resolved stellar
populations, active galactic nucleus incidence, and infrared
properties of this unique sample of galaxies in order to place
definitive constraints on the quenching process.
Description:
We select bright, intermediate-redshift, recently quenched galaxies
from the SDSS DR14 spectroscopic sample using a simple color-based
selection criterion. Using just two rest-frame color cuts, we are able
to isolate 1318 post-starburst galaxies at 0.5<z≲0.9.
We use the Prospector spectral energy distribution fitting code
(Johnson+ 2021ApJS..254...22J 2021ApJS..254...22J) to recover the stellar population
parameters and SFHs of all SQuIGGLE (the Studying Quenching in
Intermediate-z Galaxies: Gas, anguLar momentum, and Evolution survey)
galaxies.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 88 1374 Basic properties of SQuIGGLE post-starburst galaxies
table2.dat 113 1372 Prospector SED fitting results for SQuIGGLE
post-starburst galaxies; with updated total stellar
masses from erratum published in 2022ApJ...931...73S 2022ApJ...931...73S
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See also:
IX/45 : The Chandra Source Catalog, Release 1.1 (Evans+ 2012)
IX/57 : The Chandra Source Catalog (CSC), Release 2.0 (Evans+, 2019)
V/154 : Sloan Digital Sky Surveys (SDSS), Release 16 (DR16) (Ahumada+, 2020)
J/ApJS/122/51 : Sp. catalog of 10 rich galaxy clusters (Dressler+ 1999)
J/MNRAS/371/703 : MILES library of empirical spectra (Sanchez-Blazquez+, 2006)
J/MNRAS/414/888 : ATLAS3D project. III. (Emsellem+, 2011)
J/ApJS/224/38 : SPOGS. I. SDSS Shocked POststarburst Gal. (Alatalo+, 2016)
J/ApJ/833/19 : 0.02<z<1.4 post-starburst SDSS gal. (Pattarakijwanich+, 2016)
J/ApJ/862/2 : Post-starburst galaxy ages from SDSS (French+, 2018)
J/ApJ/919/134 : SDSS shocked post-starburst gal. with HST (Sazonova+, 2021)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 5 A5 --- --- [spec-]
6- 20 A15 --- Sp-ID SDSS identifier, --
22- 30 F9.5 deg RAdeg Right Ascension, decimal degrees (J2000)
32- 39 F8.5 deg DEdeg [-9.7/68.5] Declination, decimal degrees (J2000)
41- 47 F7.5 --- zspec [0.5/0.94] Spectroscopic redshift
49- 53 F5.2 0.1nm Hdelta [-0.09/12.4] Hydrogen δ equivalent width,
Angstroms
55- 58 F4.2 0.1nm e_Hdelta [0.2/1]? Uncertainty in Hdelta (1)
60- 63 F4.2 --- D4000 [1/1.6] Dn4000 index,
Balogh+ (1999ApJ...527...54B 1999ApJ...527...54B)
65- 68 F4.2 --- e_D4000 [0.01/0.04] Uncertainty in D4000
70- 75 F6.2 km/s sigma [82/470] Velocity dispersion (2)
77- 82 F6.2 km/s e_sigma [13/338] Uncertainty in sigma (2)
84- 88 F5.3 --- apcor [0.68/6.3] Aperture correction
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Note (1): Values of Hdelta with null uncertainties correspond to upper limits.
Note (2): From the pPXF fits described in Greene+ (2020ApJ...899L...9G 2020ApJ...899L...9G).
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 5 A5 --- --- [spec-]
6- 20 A15 --- Sp-ID SDSS identifier, --
22- 26 F5.2 [Msun] logMs [10.5/12] Surviving stellar mass content
28- 31 F4.2 [Msun] e_logMs [0/0.4] Lower uncertainty in logMs
33- 36 F4.2 [Msun] E_logMs [0/0.3] Upper uncertainty in logMs
38- 42 F5.2 [Sun] logZ [-0.5/0.95] Metallicity
44- 47 F4.2 [Sun] e_logZ [0.01/0.7] Lower uncertainty in logZ
49- 52 F4.2 [Sun] E_logZ [0.02/0.7] Upper uncertainty in logZ
54- 57 F4.2 mag Av [0.01/2.3] V-band reddening (1)
59- 62 F4.2 mag e_Av [0.01/0.4] Lower uncertainty in Av
64- 67 F4.2 mag E_Av [0.01/0.3] Upper uncertainty in Av
69- 73 F5.2 --- dust [-1/0.4] Index for dust law (1)
75- 78 F4.2 --- e_dust [0/0.7] Lower uncertainty in dust
80- 83 F4.2 --- E_dust [0/0.9] Upper uncertainty in dust
85- 88 F4.2 Myr tq [0.01/2]? Time since quenching
90- 93 F4.2 Myr e_tq [0/1.2]? Lower uncertainty in tq
95- 98 F4.2 Myr E_tq [0.01/0.7]? Upper uncertainty in tq
100-103 F4.2 --- fburst [0.02/1]? Fraction of mass formed in
the recent burst
105-108 F4.2 --- e_fburst [0/0.7]? Lower uncertainty in fburst
110-113 F4.2 --- E_fburst [0/0.9]? Upper uncertainty in fburst
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Note (1): Assuming the Kriek+ (2010ApJ...722L..64K 2010ApJ...722L..64K) dust law.
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 05-Oct-2023