The diverse molecular gas content of massive galaxies undergoing quenching at z 
~ 1

Belli, Sirio; Contursi, Alessandra; Genzel, Reinhard; Tacconi, Linda J.; Förster-Schreiber, Natascha M.; Lutz, Dieter; Combes, Françoise; Neri, Roberto; García-Burillo, Santiago; Schuster, Karl F.; Herrera-Camus, Rodrigo; Tadaki, Ken-ichi; Davies, Rebecca L.; Davies, Richard I.; Johnson, Benjamin D.; Lee, Minju M.; Leja, Joel; Nelson, Erica J.; Price, Sedona H.; Jinyi, Shangguan; Shimizu, T. Taro; Tacchella, Sandro; Übler, Hannah

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/abe6a6

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

The diverse molecular gas content of massive galaxies undergoing quenching at z ~ 1

MPS-Authors

/persons/resource/persons187981

Belli, Sirio
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons16298

Contursi, Alessandra
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons4590

Genzel, Reinhard
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons4582

Tacconi, Linda J.
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons4923

Förster-Schreiber, Natascha M.
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons4584

Lutz, Dieter
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons208361

Davies, Rebecca L.
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons4586

Davies, Richard I.
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons238635

Lee, Minju M.
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons216308

Price, Sedona H.
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons232571

Jinyi, Shangguan
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons206401

Shimizu, T. Taro
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons128736

Übler, Hannah
Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy, MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics, Max Planck Society;

External Resource

No external resources are shared

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Belli, S., Contursi, A., Genzel, R., Tacconi, L. J., Förster-Schreiber, N. M., Lutz, D., et al. (2021). The diverse molecular gas content of massive galaxies undergoing quenching at z ~ 1. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 909(1): L11. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/abe6a6.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0008-8B94-4

Abstract

We present a detailed study of the molecular gas content and stellar population properties of three massive galaxies at 1 < z < 1.3 that are in different stages of quenching. The galaxies were selected to have quiescent optical/near-infrared spectral energy distribution and relatively bright emission at 24 μm, and show remarkably diverse properties. CO emission from each of the three galaxies is detected in deep NOEMA observations, allowing us to derive molecular gas fractions M_gas/M_* of 13%–23%. We also reconstruct the star formation histories by fitting models to the observed photometry and optical spectroscopy, finding evidence for recent rejuvenation in one object, slow quenching in another, and rapid quenching in the third system. To better constrain the quenching mechanism we explore the depletion times for our sample and other similar samples at z ~ 0.7 from the literature. We find that the depletion times are highly dependent on the method adopted to measure the star formation rate: using the UV+IR luminosity we obtain depletion times about 6 times shorter than those derived using dust-corrected [O II] emission. When adopting the star formation rates from spectral fitting, which are arguably more robust, we find that recently quenched galaxies and star-forming galaxies have similar depletion times, while older quiescent systems have longer depletion times. These results offer new, important constraints for physical models of galaxy quenching.