학술논문

When the Well Runs Dry: Modeling Environmental Quenching of High-mass Satellites in Massive Clusters at \boldmath$z \gtrsim 1$
Document Type
Working Paper
Source
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 526, Issue 3, December 2023
Subject
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Language
Abstract
We explore models of massive ($\gt 10^{10}~{\rm M}_{\odot}$) satellite quenching in massive clusters at $z\gtrsim1$ using an MCMC framework, focusing on two primary parameters: $R_{\rm quench}$ (the host-centric radius at which quenching begins) and $\tau_{\rm quench}$ (the timescale upon which a satellite quenches after crossing $R_{\rm quench}$). Our MCMC analysis shows two local maxima in the 1D posterior probability distribution of $R_{\rm quench}$ at approximately $0.25$ and $1.0~R_{\rm{200}}$. Analyzing four distinct solutions in the $\tau_{\rm quench}$-$R_{\rm quench}$ parameter space, nearly all of which yield quiescent fractions consistent with observational data from the GOGREEN survey, we investigate whether these solutions represent distinct quenching pathways and find that they can be separated between \textquote{starvation} and \textquote{core quenching} scenarios. The starvation pathway is characterized by quenching timescales that are roughly consistent with the total cold gas (H$_{2}$+H{\scriptsize I}) depletion timescale at intermediate $z$, while core quenching is characterized by satellites with relatively high line-of-sight velocities that quench on short timescales ($\sim 0.25$ Gyr) after reaching the inner region of the cluster ($\lt 0.30~R_{\rm{200}}$). Lastly, we break the degeneracy between these solutions by comparing the observed properties of transition galaxies from the GOGREEN survey. We conclude that only the \textquote{starvation} pathway is consistent with the projected phase-space distribution and relative abundance of transition galaxies at $z \sim 1$. However, we acknowledge that ram pressure might contribute as a secondary quenching mechanism.
Comment: 15 pages; 8 figures; Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society