Classifying Quenching Galaxies: Comparing Methods
Location
Culp Ballroom
Start Date
4-7-2022 9:00 AM
End Date
4-7-2022 12:00 PM
Poster Number
102
Faculty Sponsor’s Department
Physics & Astronomy
Name of Project's Faculty Sponsor
Beverly Smith
Additional Sponsors
Mark Giroux
Competition Type
Competitive
Type
Poster Presentation
Project's Category
Astronomy
Abstract or Artist's Statement
This project is the result of a summer long internship I worked on with Dr. Beverly Smith in the ETSU Department of Physics and Astronomy. It was completed with the support of a grant from the NASA Tennessee Space Grant Consortium. Quenching galaxies are galaxies that are rapidly evolving from strongly star forming systems to galaxies with mostly old stars and low star formation rates. When identifying quenching galaxies, there are several methods in common use. Furthermore, there are several ways astronomers estimate the Star Formation Rate (SFR), in Solar Masses per year, and Stellar Mass (M*), in Solar Masses, of galaxies. For a large sample of galaxies, we used 6 derivations of M* and 4 for SFR, plotting them against each other for comparison. We also calculated and compared the specific SFR (sSFR), equal to SFR/M*, and compared the different methods of defining quenched galaxies. Finally, we divided up these plots by classification, Red Sequence/Green Valley/Blue Cloud, and different values of log (SFR) *
Classifying Quenching Galaxies: Comparing Methods
Culp Ballroom
This project is the result of a summer long internship I worked on with Dr. Beverly Smith in the ETSU Department of Physics and Astronomy. It was completed with the support of a grant from the NASA Tennessee Space Grant Consortium. Quenching galaxies are galaxies that are rapidly evolving from strongly star forming systems to galaxies with mostly old stars and low star formation rates. When identifying quenching galaxies, there are several methods in common use. Furthermore, there are several ways astronomers estimate the Star Formation Rate (SFR), in Solar Masses per year, and Stellar Mass (M*), in Solar Masses, of galaxies. For a large sample of galaxies, we used 6 derivations of M* and 4 for SFR, plotting them against each other for comparison. We also calculated and compared the specific SFR (sSFR), equal to SFR/M*, and compared the different methods of defining quenched galaxies. Finally, we divided up these plots by classification, Red Sequence/Green Valley/Blue Cloud, and different values of log (SFR) *