SDSS-IV MaNGA: when is morphology imprinted on galaxies?

Peterken, Thomas; Merrifield, Michael; Arag�n-Salamanca, Alfonso; Avila-Reese, Vladimir; Boardman, Nicholas F; Drory, Niv; Lane, Richard R

Abstract

It remains an open question as to how long ago the morphology that we see in a present-day galaxy was typically imprinted. Studies of galaxy populations at different redshifts reveal that the balance of morphologies has changed over time, but such snapshots cannot uncover the typical time-scales over which individual galaxies undergo morphological transformation, nor which are the progenitors of today’s galaxies of different types. However, these studies also show a strong link between morphology and star formation rate (SFR) over a large range in redshift, which offers an alternative probe of morphological transformation. We therefore derive the evolution in SFR and stellar mass of a sample of 4342 galaxies in the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey through a stellar population ‘fossil record’ approach, and show that the average evolution of the population shows good agreement with known behaviour from previous studies. Although the correlation between a galaxy’s contemporaneous morphology and SFR is strong over a large range of lookback times, we find that a galaxy’s present-day morphology only correlates with its relatively recent (⁠∼2Gyr⁠) star formation history. We therefore find strong evidence that morphological transitions to galaxies’ current appearance occurred on time-scales as short as a few billion years.

Citation

Peterken, T., Merrifield, M., Aragón-Salamanca, A., Avila-Reese, V., Boardman, N. F., Drory, N., & Lane, R. R. (2021). SDSS-IV MaNGA: when is morphology imprinted on galaxies?. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 500(1), L42-L46. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slaa179

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 27, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Nov 4, 2020
• Publication Date: 2021-01
• Deposit Date: Dec 14, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 20, 2021
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
• Electronic ISSN: 1745-3933
• Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 500
• Issue: 1
• Pages: L42-L46
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slaa179
• Keywords: Space and Planetary Science; Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5141847