Post starburst galaxies – they don’t run out of gas!

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From a NRAO press release on our team’s work.

Post-starburst galaxies were previously thought to scatter all of their gas and dust—the fuel required for creating new stars—in violent bursts of energy, and with extraordinary speed. Now, new data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) reveals that these galaxies don’t scatter all of their star-forming fuel after all. Instead, after their supposed end, these dormant galaxies hold onto and compress large amounts of highly-concentrated, turbulent gas. But contrary to expectation, they’re not using it to form stars.

Click here to view a press release from NRAO for more details, and two ApJ (1, 2) papers that are led by my close collaborator Dr. Adam Smercina.

Post-starburst galaxies were previously believed to expel all of their molecular gas, a behavior that caused them to stop forming stars. New observations have revealed that these galaxies actually hold onto and condense star-forming fuel near their centers, and then don’t use it to form stars. Here, radio data of PSB 0570.537.52266 overlaid on optical images from the Hubble Space Telescope, show the dense collection of gas near the center of the galaxy. See the press release from NRAO for more details.
Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Dagnello (NRAO/AUI/NSF)