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In the local Universe, there is a strong division in the star-forming properties of low-mass galaxies, with star formation largely ubiquitous amongst the field population while satellite systems are predominantly quenched. This dichotomy implies that environmental processes play the dominant role in suppressing star formation within this low-mass regime (M*~105.5-8 M...). As shown by observations of the Local Volume, however, there is a non-negligible population of passive systems in the field, which challenges our understanding of quenching at low masses. By applying the satellite quenching models of Fillingham et al. (2015) to subhalo populations in the Exploring the Local Volume In Simulations suite, we investigate the role of environmental processes in quenching star formation within the nearby field. Using model parameters that reproduce the satellite quenched fraction in the Local Group, we predict a quenched fraction -- due solely to environmental effects -- of ~0.52 ± 0.26 within 1

Recent studies of galaxies in the local Universe, including those in the Local Group, find that the efficiency of environmental (or satellite) quenching increases dramatically at satellite stellar masses below~108M⊚. This suggest a physical scale where quenching transitions from a slow 'starvation' mode to a rapid 'stripping' mode at low masses. We investigate the plausibility of this scenario using observed HI surface density profiles for a sample of 66 nearby galaxies as inputs to analytic calculations of ram-pressure and turbulent viscous stripping. Across a broad range of host properties, we find that stripping becomes increasingly effective at M* ≲ 108-9M⊚, reproducing the critical mass scale observed. However, for canonical values of the circumgalactic medium density (nhalo < 10-3.5 cm-3), we find that stripping is not fully effective; infalling satellites are, on average, stripped of only≲40-60 per cent of their cold gas reservoir, which is insufficient to match observations. By including a host halo gas distribution that is clumpy and therefore contains regions of higher density, we are able to reproduce the observed HI gas fractions (and thus the high quenched fraction and short quenching timescale) of Local Group satellites, suggesting that a host halo with clumpy gas may be crucial for quenching low-mass systems in Local Group-like (and more massive) host haloes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vast majority of dwarf satellites orbiting the Milky Way and M31 are quenched, while comparable galaxies in the field are gas rich and star forming. Assuming that this dichotomy is driven by environmental quenching, we use the Exploring the Local Volume in Simulations (ELVIS) suite of N-body simulations to constrain the characteristic time-scale upon which satellites must quench following infall into the virial volumes of their hosts. The high satellite quenched fraction observed in the Local Group demands an extremely short quenching timescale (~2 Gyr) for dwarf satellites in the mass rangeM* ~ 106-108M๏. This quenching timescale is significantly shorter than that required to explain the quenched fraction of more massive satellites (~8 Gyr), both in the Local Group and in more massive host haloes, suggesting a dramatic change in the dominant satellite quenching mechanism at M* ≲ 108M๏. Combining our work with the results of complementary analyses in the literature, we conclude that the suppression of star formation in massive satellites (M* ~ 108-1011M๏) is broadly consistent with being driven by starvation, such that the satellite quenching time-scale corresponds to the cold gas depletion time. Below a critical stellar mass scale of ~108M๏, however, the required quenching times are much shorter than the expected cold gas depletion times. Instead, quenching must act on a time-scale comparable to the dynamical time of the host halo. We posit that ram-pressure stripping can naturally explain this behaviour, with the critical mass (of M* ~ 108M๏) corresponding to haloes with gravitational restoring forces that are too weak to overcome the drag force encountered when moving through an extended, hot circumgalactic medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observations suggest that satellite quenching plays a major role in the build-up of passive, low-mass galaxies at late cosmic times. Studies of low-mass satellites, however, are limited by the ability to robustly characterize the local environment and star formation activity of faint systems. In an effort to overcome the limitations of existing data sets, we utilize deep photometry in Stripe 82 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, in conjunction with a neural network classification scheme, to study the suppression of star formation in low-mass satellite galaxies in the local Universe. Using a statistically driven approach, we are able to push beyond the limits of existing spectroscopic data sets, measuring the satellite quenched fraction down to satellite stellar masses of ∼107 M⊙ in group environments (M halo = 1013−14  h −1 M⊙). At high satellite stellar masses (≳1010 M⊙), our analysis successfully reproduces existing measurements of the quenched fraction based on spectroscopic samples. Pushing to lower masses, we find that the fraction of passive satellites increases, potentially signalling a change in the dominant quenching mechanism at M ⋆ ∼ 109 M⊙. Similar to the results of previous studies of the Local Group, this increase in the quenched fraction at low satellite masses may correspond to an increase in the efficacy of ram-pressure stripping as a quenching mechanism in groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]