The new galaxy evolution paradigm revealed by the Herschel surveys

Eales, Stephen; Smith, Dan; Bourne, Nathan; Loveday, Jon; Rowlands, Kate; van der Werf, Paul; Driver, Simon; Dunne, Loretta; Dye, Simon; Furlanetto, Cristina; Ivison, R. J.; Maddox, Steve; Robotham, Aaron; Smith, Matthew W.L.; Taylor, Edward N.; Valiante, Elisabetta; Wright, Angus; Cigan, Philip; De Zotti, Gianfranco; Jarvis, Matt J.; Marchetti, Lucia; Micha?owski, Micha? J.; Phillipps, Steven; Viaene, Sebastien; Vlahakis, Catherine

Abstract

© 2018 The Author(s). The Herschel Space Observatory has revealed a very different galaxyscape from that shown by optical surveys which presents a challenge for galaxy-evolution models. The Herschel surveys reveal (1) that there was rapid galaxy evolution in the very recent past and (2) that galaxies lie on a single Galaxy Sequence (GS) rather than a star-forming 'main sequence' and a separate region of 'passive' or 'red-and-dead' galaxies. The form of the GS is now clearer because far-infrared surveys such as the Herschel ATLAS pick up a population of optically red starforming galaxies that would have been classified as passive using most optical criteria. The space-density of this population is at least as high as the traditional star-forming population. By stacking spectra of H-ATLAS galaxies over the redshift range 0.001 < z < 0.4, we show that the galaxies responsible for the rapid low-redshift evolution have high stellar masses, high star-formation rates but, even several billion years in the past, old stellar populations - they are thus likely to be relatively recent ancestors of early-type galaxies in the Universe today. The form of the GS is inconsistent with rapid quenching models and neither the analytic bathtub model nor the hydrodynamical EAGLE simulation can reproduce the rapid cosmic evolution. We propose a new gentler model of galaxy evolution that can explain the new Herschel results and other key properties of the galaxy population.

Citation

Eales, S., Smith, D., Bourne, N., Loveday, J., Rowlands, K., van der Werf, P., …Vlahakis, C. (2018). The new galaxy evolution paradigm revealed by the Herschel surveys. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 473(3), 3507-3524. https://doi.org/10.1093/MNRAS/STX2548

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 28, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Oct 12, 2017
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: Dec 20, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 20, 2017
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Print ISSN: 0035-8711
• Electronic ISSN: 1365-2966
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 473
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 3507-3524
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/MNRAS/STX2548
• Keywords: galaxies: evolution
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/906036
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/473/3/3507/4494367
• Additional Information: This article has been accepted for publication in © 2017 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.