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Published June 10, 2020 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Bridging between the integrated and resolved main sequence of star formation

Abstract

The position of galaxies on the stellar mass, star formation rate (SFR) plane with respect to the star-forming main sequence at each redshift is a convenient way to infer where the galaxy is in its evolution compared to the rest of the population. We use Hubble Space Telescope high-resolution images in the GOODS-S field from the the Cosmic Assembly Near-IR Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) and fit multiwavelength lights in resolution elements of galaxies with stellar population synthesis models. We then construct resolved kpc-scale stellar mass, SFR surface density curves for galaxies at z ~ 1. Fitting these resolved main sequence curves with Schechter functions, we parameterize and explain the multiwavelength structure of galaxies with three variables: φ*, α, and M*. For quenched galaxies below the main sequence, we find an average high-mass slope (α) of the resolved main sequence curves to be ~−0.4. The scatter of this slope is higher among the lower mass star-forming galaxies and those above the main sequence compared to quenched galaxies, due to lack of an evolved bulge. Our findings agree well with an inside-out quenching of star formation. We find that the knee of the Schechter fits (M*) for galaxies below the main sequence occurs at lower stellar mass surface densities compared to star-forming galaxies, which hints at how far quenching has proceeded outward.

Additional Information

© 2020 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2019 December 3; revised 2020 January 24; accepted 2020 February 3; published 2020 June 11. We wish to thank the referee for providing very useful suggestions and recommendations. S.H. is thankful to A. Pagul for careful reading of this manuscript and for constructive comments. B.D. acknowledges financial support from the National Science Foundation, grant No. 1716907. Parts of this research were carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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Published - Hemmati_2020_ApJL_896_L17.pdf

Submitted - 2002.01011.pdf

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