1. DESI Survey Validation Spectra Reveal an Increasing Fraction of Recently Quenched Galaxies at z ∼ 1
- Author
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Setton, David J, Dey, Biprateep, Khullar, Gourav, Bezanson, Rachel, Newman, Jeffrey A, Aguilar, Jessica N, Ahlen, Steven, Andrews, Brett H, Brooks, David, de la Macorra, Axel, Dey, Arjun, Eftekharzadeh, Sarah, Font-Ribera, Andreu, Gontcho, Satya Gontcho A, Kremin, Anthony, Juneau, Stephanie, Landriau, Martin, Meisner, Aaron, Miquel, Ramon, Moustakas, John, Pearl, Alan, Prada, Francisco, Tarlé, Gregory, Siudek, Małgorzata, Weaver, Benjamin Alan, Zhou, Zhimin, and Zou, Hu
- Subjects
Astronomical Sciences ,Physical Sciences ,Astronomical and Space Sciences ,Astronomy & Astrophysics ,Astronomical sciences ,Space sciences - Abstract
We utilize 17,000 bright luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the novel Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument Survey Validation spectroscopic sample, leveraging its deep (2.5 hr galaxy-1 exposure time) spectra to characterize the contribution of recently quenched galaxies to the massive galaxy population at 0.4 < z < 1.3. We use Prospector to infer nonparametric star formation histories and identify a significant population of recently quenched galaxies that have joined the quiescent population within the past 1 Gyr. The highest-redshift subset (277 at z > 1) of our sample of recently quenched galaxies represents the largest spectroscopic sample of post-starburst galaxies at that epoch. At 0.4 < z < 0.8, we measure the number density of quiescent LRGs, finding that recently quenched galaxies constitute a growing fraction of the massive galaxy population with increasing look-back time. Finally, we quantify the importance of this population among massive ( log(M⋆/M⊙) > 11.2) LRGs by measuring the fraction of stellar mass each galaxy formed in the gigayear before observation, f 1 Gyr. Although galaxies with f 1 Gyr > 0.1 are rare at z ∼0.4 ( 20.5% of the population), by z ∼0.8, they constitute 3% of massive galaxies. Relaxing this threshold, we find that galaxies with f 1 Gyr > 5% constitute 10% of the massive galaxy population at z ∼0.8. We also identify a small but significant sample of galaxies at z = 1.1-1.3 that formed with f 1 Gyr > 50%, implying that they may be analogs to high-redshift quiescent galaxies that formed on similar timescales. Future analysis of this unprecedented sample promises to illuminate the physical mechanisms that drive the quenching of massive galaxies after cosmic noon.
- Published
- 2023