UV-FIR obs. of post-starburst galaxies & dust masses

DOI

We derive dust masses (M_dust_) from the spectral energy distributions of 58 post-starburst galaxies (PSBs). There is an anticorrelation between specific dust mass (M_dust_/M_) and the time elapsed since the starburst ended, indicating that dust was either destroyed, expelled, or rendered undetectable over the ~1Gyr after the burst. The M_dust/M_ depletion timescale, 205-37_^+58^Myr, is consistent with that of the CO-traced M_H2_/M_, suggesting that dust and gas are altered via the same process. Extrapolating these trends leads to the M_dust/M_ and M_H2/M_ values of early-type galaxies (ETGs) within 1-2Gyr, a timescale consistent with the evolution of other PSB properties into ETGs. Comparing Mdust and M_H2 for PSBs yields a calibration, log M_H2_=0.45logM_dust_+6.02, that allows us to place 33 PSBs on the Kennicutt-Schmidt (KS) plane, {Sigma}SFR-{Sigma}M_H2_. Over the first ~200-300Myr, the PSBs evolve down and off of the KS relation, as their star formation rate (SFR) decreases more rapidly than M_H2_. Afterwards, M_H2_ continues to decline whereas the SFR levels off. These trends suggest that the star formation efficiency bottoms out at 10^-11^/yr and will rise to ETG levels within 0.5-1.1Gyr afterwards. The SFR decline after the burst is likely due to the absence of gas denser than the CO-traced H2. The mechanism of the M_dust_/M_ and M_H2/M_*_ decline, whose timescale suggests active galactic nucleus/low-ionization nuclear emission-line region feedback, may also be preventing the large CO-traced molecular gas reservoirs from collapsing and forming denser star-forming clouds.

Cone search capability for table J/ApJ/879/131/psbgal (Post-starburst galaxies properties and archival UV-FIR photometry (Tables 1, 2, 4 and Tables 6+7 from Smercina et al. 2018ApJ...855...51S))

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.18790131
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/879/131
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/879/131
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/879/131
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/879/131
Provenance
Creator Li Z.; French K.D.; Zabludoff A.I.; Ho L.C.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2021
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Cosmology; Galactic and extragalactic Astronomy; Interstellar medium; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics