JWST MIRI observations of post-starburst galaxies find no mid-IR excess in high-mass systems, constraining hidden AGN to Eddington ratios below 1 percent, with low-mass systems showing residual star formation instead.
Strangulation as the primary mechanism for shutting down star formation in galaxies
3 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.
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Pith papers citing it
abstract
Local galaxies are broadly divided into two main classes, star-forming (gas-rich) and quiescent (passive and gas-poor). The primary mechanism responsible for quenching star formation in galaxies and transforming them into quiescent and passive systems is still unclear. Sudden removal of gas through outflows or stripping is one of the mechanisms often proposed. An alternative mechanism is so-called "strangulation", in which the supply of cold gas to the galaxy is halted. Here we report that the difference between quiescent and star forming galaxies in terms of stellar metallicity (i.e. the fraction of metals heavier than helium in stellar atmospheres) can be used to discriminate efficiently between the two mechanisms. The analysis of the stellar metallicity in local galaxies, from 26,000 spectra, clearly reveals that strangulation is the primary mechanism responsible for quenching star formation, with a typical timescale of 4 billion years, at least for local galaxies with a stellar mass less than 10^11 solar masses. This result is further supported independently by the stellar age difference between quiescent and star-forming galaxies, which indicates that quiescent galaxies of less than 10^11 solar masses are on average observed four billion years after quenching due to strangulation.
fields
astro-ph.GA 3years
2026 3representative citing papers
Low-mass filament galaxies in TNG50 exhibit smaller asymmetric cold gas discs due to cosmic web tidal fields causing altered accretion or starvation and late-time stripping, while integrated stellar and halo properties remain similar to field counterparts after mass and environment controls.
Stacking analysis shows mean SFR in massive galaxies at 2<z<4.5 declines along the Hubble sequence from ~280 M⊙/yr in irregulars to ~80 M⊙/yr in spheroids, with a simple chemical evolution model explaining the rise in dust-to-stellar mass ratio out to z~8.
citing papers explorer
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No hidden monsters: Probing recently-quenched galaxies for obscured AGN with JWST-PRIMER MIRI and NIRCam
JWST MIRI observations of post-starburst galaxies find no mid-IR excess in high-mass systems, constraining hidden AGN to Eddington ratios below 1 percent, with low-mass systems showing residual star formation instead.
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Cosmic web stripping and starvation of low-mass filament galaxies in TNG50
Low-mass filament galaxies in TNG50 exhibit smaller asymmetric cold gas discs due to cosmic web tidal fields causing altered accretion or starvation and late-time stripping, while integrated stellar and halo properties remain similar to field counterparts after mass and environment controls.
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COSMOS-Web: Star formation along the early Hubble sequence and the evolution of dust over the redshift range 0<z<12
Stacking analysis shows mean SFR in massive galaxies at 2<z<4.5 declines along the Hubble sequence from ~280 M⊙/yr in irregulars to ~80 M⊙/yr in spheroids, with a simple chemical evolution model explaining the rise in dust-to-stellar mass ratio out to z~8.