The Environmental Quenching Mechanisms of Field Dwarf Galaxies
Field dwarf galaxies not actively forming stars are relatively rare in the local Universe, but are present in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We use the TNG50 simulation to investigate their origin and find that they all result from environmental effects that have removed or reduced their g...
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IOP Publishing
2025-01-01
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| Series: | The Astrophysical Journal |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adced0 |
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| author | José A. Benavides Julio F. Navarro Laura V. Sales Isabel Pérez Bahar Bidaran |
| author_facet | José A. Benavides Julio F. Navarro Laura V. Sales Isabel Pérez Bahar Bidaran |
| author_sort | José A. Benavides |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Field dwarf galaxies not actively forming stars are relatively rare in the local Universe, but are present in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We use the TNG50 simulation to investigate their origin and find that they all result from environmental effects that have removed or reduced their gas content. Quenched field dwarfs consist of either backsplash objects ejected from a massive host or of systems that have lost their gas after crossing overdense regions such as filaments or sheets (“cosmic web stripping”). Quenched fractions rise steeply with decreasing stellar mass, with quenched systems making up roughly ∼15% of all field dwarfs (i.e., excluding satellites) with stellar masses 10 ^7 < M _⋆ / M _⊙ < 10 ^9 . This fraction drops to only ∼1% when a strict isolation criterion that requires no neighbors with M _⋆ > 10 ^9 M _⊙ within 1.5 Mpc is applied. Of these isolated dwarfs, ∼6% are backsplash, while the other ∼94% have been affected by the cosmic web. Backsplash systems are more deficient in dark matter, have retained less or no gas, and have stopped forming stars earlier than cosmic web-stripped systems. The discovery of deeply isolated dwarf galaxies that were quenched relatively recently would lend observational support to the prediction that the cosmic web is capable of inducing the cessation of star formation in dwarfs. |
| format | Article |
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| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
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| series | The Astrophysical Journal |
| spelling | doaj-art-d2e04802f000463686ee7a2044fe80692025-08-20T01:49:59ZengIOP PublishingThe Astrophysical Journal1538-43572025-01-0198518610.3847/1538-4357/adced0The Environmental Quenching Mechanisms of Field Dwarf GalaxiesJosé A. Benavides0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1896-0424Julio F. Navarro1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3862-5076Laura V. Sales2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3790-720XIsabel Pérez3https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1634-4628Bahar Bidaran4https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2643-2472Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California , Riverside, CA 92507, USADepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria , Victoria, BC V8P 5C2, CanadaDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of California , Riverside, CA 92507, USADpto. de Física Teórica y del Cosmos, Facultad de Ciencias (Edificio Mecenas), University of Granada , E-18071, Granada, Spain; Instituto Carlos I de Física Teórica y Computacional, Universidad de Granada , E18071, Granada, SpainDpto. de Física Teórica y del Cosmos, Facultad de Ciencias (Edificio Mecenas), University of Granada , E-18071, Granada, SpainField dwarf galaxies not actively forming stars are relatively rare in the local Universe, but are present in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We use the TNG50 simulation to investigate their origin and find that they all result from environmental effects that have removed or reduced their gas content. Quenched field dwarfs consist of either backsplash objects ejected from a massive host or of systems that have lost their gas after crossing overdense regions such as filaments or sheets (“cosmic web stripping”). Quenched fractions rise steeply with decreasing stellar mass, with quenched systems making up roughly ∼15% of all field dwarfs (i.e., excluding satellites) with stellar masses 10 ^7 < M _⋆ / M _⊙ < 10 ^9 . This fraction drops to only ∼1% when a strict isolation criterion that requires no neighbors with M _⋆ > 10 ^9 M _⊙ within 1.5 Mpc is applied. Of these isolated dwarfs, ∼6% are backsplash, while the other ∼94% have been affected by the cosmic web. Backsplash systems are more deficient in dark matter, have retained less or no gas, and have stopped forming stars earlier than cosmic web-stripped systems. The discovery of deeply isolated dwarf galaxies that were quenched relatively recently would lend observational support to the prediction that the cosmic web is capable of inducing the cessation of star formation in dwarfs.https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adced0Dwarf galaxiesGalaxy evolutionField galaxiesGalaxies |
| spellingShingle | José A. Benavides Julio F. Navarro Laura V. Sales Isabel Pérez Bahar Bidaran The Environmental Quenching Mechanisms of Field Dwarf Galaxies The Astrophysical Journal Dwarf galaxies Galaxy evolution Field galaxies Galaxies |
| title | The Environmental Quenching Mechanisms of Field Dwarf Galaxies |
| title_full | The Environmental Quenching Mechanisms of Field Dwarf Galaxies |
| title_fullStr | The Environmental Quenching Mechanisms of Field Dwarf Galaxies |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Environmental Quenching Mechanisms of Field Dwarf Galaxies |
| title_short | The Environmental Quenching Mechanisms of Field Dwarf Galaxies |
| title_sort | environmental quenching mechanisms of field dwarf galaxies |
| topic | Dwarf galaxies Galaxy evolution Field galaxies Galaxies |
| url | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adced0 |
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