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SQuIGG﹩\overrightarrow{L}﹩E: Buried Star Formation Cannot Explain the Rapidly Fading CO(2–1) Luminosity in Massive, z ∼ 0.7 Post-starburst Galaxies

  • Authors: David J. Setton, Justin S. Spilker, Rachel Bezanson, Katherine A. Suess, Jenny E. Greene, Andy D. Goulding, Elia Cenci, Vincenzo R. D'Onofrio, Robert Feldmann, Mariska Kriek, Anika Kumar, Yuanze Luo, Desika Narayanan, Margaret E. Verrico, Pengpei Zhu

David J. Setton et al 2025 The Astronomical Journal 170 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 11.

﹩{M}_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2}}﹩ mass (assuming r21 and αCO = 4.0, left) and molecular gas fraction (right) vs. post-starburst time (defined as the time at which the galaxy formed 99% of the total mass formed in the Gyr before observation, as measured from the τBC Free fits). We show SQuIGG﹩\overrightarrow{L}﹩E points in black, with CO-detected galaxies as large symbols and CO upper limits as smaller symbols. A stack of all nondetections is shown as a red square at the median tPSB. Similar to the trend with the time since quenching reported in R. Bezanson et al. (2022), we find that only the youngest SQuIGG﹩\overrightarrow{L}﹩E galaxies are CO-luminous. In purple, we show a best-fitting exponential to the gas fraction as a function of age with a decay timescale of 70  ±  20 Myr, implying that galaxies must clear out their remaining molecular gas reservoirs in ≲150 Myr to match the observed trend.

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