Identifying and Distinguishing Quenching Galaxies with Spatially Resolved Star Formation in the Hubble Frontier Fields
Identifying and Distinguishing Quenching Galaxies with Spatially Resolved Star Formation in the Hubble Frontier Fields
Cameron Lawlor-Forsyth, Michael L. Balogh, Sean L. McGee, Gregory H. Rudnick
AbstractWe investigate the nature and prevalence of different quenching signatures for 1437 galaxies with $M_{*} \geqslant 10^{8}~\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ and $\text{SFR} \geqslant 10^{-3}~M_{\odot}~\text{yr}^{-1}$ in the Hubble Frontier Fields through spatially resolved spectral energy distribution fitting with \texttt{FAST++}. We use the morphological metrics previously presented in our series of investigations to quantify the distribution of star formation, and use a $k$-nearest neighbors algorithm to classify quenching galaxies into different quenching pathways, including an inside-out pathway and an outside-in pathway. We find 129 galaxies have morphologies consistent with an inside-out quenching pathway, and 70 are consistent with an outside-in pathway. Inside-out quenching galaxies are $0.8^{+0.2}_{-0.1}~\text{dex}$ more massive compared to outside-in quenching galaxies, where both populations are more massive in clusters than the field, by $0.8^{+0.3}_{-0.1}~\text{dex}$. Inside-out quenching galaxies are found more often in clusters (106/129), compared to outside-in quenching galaxies (25/70). In clusters, the fraction of inside-out quenching galaxies strongly increases with mass, representing ${\sim}$30% of the non-quenched galaxy population at high masses. A milder evolution is seen in the field. The fraction of outside-in quenching galaxies is independent of mass, representing ${\lesssim}$10% of the non-quenched population, in both the cluster and field. We find no strong dependence for the fraction of any population with estimated infall time, except massive inside-out quenching galaxies, which increase in fraction with increasing infall time.