TY - JOUR
T1 - THE EVOLUTION of POST-STARBURST GALAXIES from z ∼ 1 to the PRESENT
AU - Pattarakijwanich, Petchara
AU - Strauss, Michael A.
AU - Ho, Shirley
AU - Ross, Nicholas P.
N1 - Funding Information:
SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/12/10
Y1 - 2016/12/10
N2 - Post-starburst galaxies are in the transitional stage between blue, star-forming galaxies and red, quiescent galaxies and therefore hold important clues for our understanding of galaxy evolution. In this paper, we systematically searched for and identified a large sample of post-starburst galaxies from the spectroscopic data set of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 9. In total, we found more than 6000 objects with redshifts between z ∼ 0.05 and z ∼ 1.3, making this the largest sample of post-starburst galaxies in the literature. We calculated the luminosity function of the post-starburst galaxies using two uniformly selected subsamples: the SDSS main galaxy sample and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey CMASS sample. The luminosity functions are reasonably fit by half-Gaussian functions. The peak magnitudes shift as a function of redshift from M ∼ -23.5 at z ∼ 0.8 to M ∼ -20.3 at z ∼ 0.1. This is consistent with the downsizing trend, whereby more massive galaxies form earlier than low-mass galaxies. We compared the mass of the post-starburst stellar population found in our sample to the decline of the global star formation rate and found that only a small amount (∼1%) of all star formation quenching in the redshift range z = 0.2-0.7 results in post-starburst galaxies in the luminosity range our sample is sensitive to. Therefore, luminous post-starburst galaxies are not the place where most of the decline in the star formation rate of the universe is happening.
AB - Post-starburst galaxies are in the transitional stage between blue, star-forming galaxies and red, quiescent galaxies and therefore hold important clues for our understanding of galaxy evolution. In this paper, we systematically searched for and identified a large sample of post-starburst galaxies from the spectroscopic data set of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 9. In total, we found more than 6000 objects with redshifts between z ∼ 0.05 and z ∼ 1.3, making this the largest sample of post-starburst galaxies in the literature. We calculated the luminosity function of the post-starburst galaxies using two uniformly selected subsamples: the SDSS main galaxy sample and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey CMASS sample. The luminosity functions are reasonably fit by half-Gaussian functions. The peak magnitudes shift as a function of redshift from M ∼ -23.5 at z ∼ 0.8 to M ∼ -20.3 at z ∼ 0.1. This is consistent with the downsizing trend, whereby more massive galaxies form earlier than low-mass galaxies. We compared the mass of the post-starburst stellar population found in our sample to the decline of the global star formation rate and found that only a small amount (∼1%) of all star formation quenching in the redshift range z = 0.2-0.7 results in post-starburst galaxies in the luminosity range our sample is sensitive to. Therefore, luminous post-starburst galaxies are not the place where most of the decline in the star formation rate of the universe is happening.
KW - galaxies: distances and redshifts
KW - galaxies: evolution
KW - galaxies: high-redshift
KW - galaxies: luminosity function, mass function
KW - galaxies: starburst
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U2 - 10.3847/0004-637X/833/1/19
DO - 10.3847/0004-637X/833/1/19
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85006339853
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 833
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 1
M1 - 19
ER -