The MASSIVE survey – XI. What drives the molecular gas properties of early-type galaxies

Davis, Timothy A.; Greene, Jenny E.; Ma, Chung‐Pei; Blakeslee, John P.; Dawson, James M.; Pandya, Viraj; Veale, Melanie; Zabel, Nikki

doi:10.1093/mnras/stz871

Cited by 69 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 96 publications

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“…Both IllustrisTNG and S produce at least some quite massive galaxies with significant H 2 even though those galaxies are generally quenched, which is also seen in some observed systems (e.g. Davis et al 2019). It remains to be seen if there is statistical agreement with observations since xCOLD GASS is not a sufficiently large sample to include such rare objects, and current observations of molecular gas in massive galaxies are limited to heterogeneously selected samples.…”

Section: For F Hi Smentioning

confidence: 90%

Galaxy cold gas contents in modern cosmological hydrodynamic simulations

Davé

Crain

Stevens

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

113

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Abstract We present a comparison of galaxy atomic and molecular gas properties in three recent cosmological hydrodynamic simulations, Simba, EAGLE, and IllustrisTNG, versus observations from z ∼ 0 − 2. These simulations all rely on similar sub-resolution prescriptions to model cold interstellar gas which they cannot represent directly, and qualitatively reproduce the observed z ≈ 0 H i and H2 mass functions (HIMF, H2MF), CO(1-0) luminosity functions (COLF), and gas scaling relations versus stellar mass, specific star formation rate, and stellar surface density μ*, with some quantitative differences. To compare to the COLF, we apply an H2-to-CO conversion factor to the simulated galaxies based on their average molecular surface density and metallicity, yielding substantial variations in αCO and significant differences between models. Using this, predicted z = 0 COLFs agree better with data than predicted H2MFs. Out to z ∼ 2, EAGLE’s and Simba’s HIMF and COLF strongly increase, while IllustrisTNG’s HIMF declines and COLF evolves slowly. EAGLE and Simba reproduce high LCO1-0 galaxies at z ∼ 1 − 2 as observed, owing partly to a median αCO(z = 2) ∼ 1 versus αCO(z = 0) ∼ 3. Examining H i, H2, and CO scaling relations, their trends with M* are broadly reproduced in all models, but EAGLE yields too little H i in green valley galaxies, IllustrisTNG and Simba overproduce cold gas in massive galaxies, and Simba overproduces molecular gas in small systems. Using Simba variants that exclude individual AGN feedback modules, we find that Simba’s AGN jet feedback is primarily responsible by lowering cold gas contents from z ∼ 1 → 0 by suppressing cold gas in $M_*\gtrsim10^{10}{\rm M}_\odot$ galaxies, while X-ray feedback suppresses the formation of high-μ* systems.

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Section: For F Hi Smentioning

confidence: 90%

Galaxy cold gas contents in modern cosmological hydrodynamic simulations

Davé

Crain

Stevens

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

113

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“…In order to estimate the visibility timescale t visible we used the chemical evolution model ChemEvol † (Morgan & Edmunds 2003;Rowlands et al 2014;De Vis et al 2017). We simulated the chemical evolution of 5×10 8 M of cold gas (the typical amount of H 2 found in gas rich ETGs; Young et al 2011;Davis et al 2019) that initially has a metallicity of 0.1 Z , which falls into a typical galaxy from our observational sample (with a stellar mass of 2.6×10 10 M and a stellar metallicity of 0.89 Z ). The gas forms stars in a single episode, which we model using a gaussian star formation history with a standard deviation of 500 million years.…”

Section: Enrichment Timescalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Various studies have set limits on the relative importance of these mechanisms (e.g. E-mail: DavisT@cardiff.ac.uk Sarzi et al 2006; Thomas et al 2010;Davis et al 2011Davis et al , 2015Davis et al , 2019Lagos et al 2014Lagos et al , 2015Davis & Bureau 2016;Belfiore et al 2017;Bryant et al 2019;Griffith et al 2019), but no definitive conclusions have been reached.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A significant population of low gas-phase metallicity ellipticals are found well below the mass -metallicity relation. tion of the gas (Sarzi et al 2006, Davis et al 2011, Belfiore et al 2017, Bryant et al 2019, and modelling this in concert with constraints on the large scale environment which can act to suppress external gas accretion (Davis & Bureau 2016;Davis et al 2019; see also Thomas et al 2010). Less attention has been paid to the metallicity distribution of the gas in ETGs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gas accretion as fuel for residual star formation in Galaxy Zoo elliptical galaxies

Davis

Young

2019

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters

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In this letter we construct a large sample of early-type galaxies with measured gas-phase metallicities from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Galaxy Zoo in order to investigate the origin of the gas that fuels their residual star formation. We use this sample to show that star forming elliptical galaxies have a substantially different gas-phase metallicity distribution from spiral galaxies, with ≈7.4% having a very low gas-phase metallicity for their mass. These systems typically have fewer metals in the gas phase than they do in their stellar photospheres, which strongly suggests that the material fuelling their recent star formation was accreted from an external source. We use a chemical evolution model to show that the enrichment timescale for low-metallicity gas is very short, and thus that cosmological accretion and minor mergers are likely to supply the gas in > ∼ 37% of star-forming ETGs, in good agreement with estimates derived from other independent techniques.

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“…This latter processes is expected to be important in fuelling the star formation observed in massive galaxies (see e.g. Section 3; Davis & Bureau 2016; Davis et al 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Stellar initial mass function variation in massive early-type galaxies: the potential role of the deuterium abundance

Davis

Voort

2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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The observed stellar initial mass function (IMF) appears to vary, becoming bottom-heavy in the centres of the most massive, metal-rich early-type galaxies (ETGs). It is still unclear what physical processes might cause this IMF variation. In this paper, we demonstrate that the abundance of deuterium in the birth clouds of forming stars may be important in setting the IMF. We use models of disc accretion onto low-mass protostars to show that those forming from deuterium-poor gas are expected to have zero-age main sequence masses significantly lower than those forming from primordial (high deuterium fraction) material. This deuterium abundance effect depends on stellar mass in our simple models, such that the resulting IMF would become bottom-heavy – as seen in observations. Stellar mass loss is entirely deuterium-free and is important in fuelling star formation across cosmic time. Using the EAGLE simulation we show that stellar mass loss-induced deuterium variations are strongest in the same regions where IMF variations are observed: at the centres of the most massive, metal-rich, passive galaxies. While our analysis cannot prove that the deuterium abundance is the root cause of the observed IMF variation, it sets the stage for future theoretical and observational attempts to study this possibility.

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The MASSIVE survey – XI. What drives the molecular gas properties of early-type galaxies

Cited by 69 publications

References 96 publications

Galaxy cold gas contents in modern cosmological hydrodynamic simulations

Galaxy cold gas contents in modern cosmological hydrodynamic simulations

Gas accretion as fuel for residual star formation in Galaxy Zoo elliptical galaxies

Stellar initial mass function variation in massive early-type galaxies: the potential role of the deuterium abundance

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