Kavli Affiliate: Roberto Maiolino
| First 5 Authors: Jan Scholtz, Francesco D’Eugenio, Roberto Maiolino, Pablo G. Pérez-González, Chiara Circosta
| Summary:
JWST is discovering increasing numbers of quiescent galaxies 1–2 billion
years after the Big Bang, whose redshift, high mass, and old stellar ages
indicate that their formation and quenching were surprisingly rapid. This
fast-paced evolution seems to require that feedback from AGN (active galactic
nuclei) be faster and/or more efficient than previously expected citep{Xie24}.
We present deep ALMA observations of cold molecular gas (the fuel for star
formation) in a massive, fast-rotating, post-starburst galaxy at $z=3.064$.
This galaxy hosts an AGN, driving neutral-gas outflows with a mass-outflow rate
of $60pm20$ M$_{odot}$ yr$^{-1}$, and has a star-formation rate of $<5.6$
M$_{odot}$ yr$^{-1}$. Our data reveal this system to be the most distant
gas-poor galaxy confirmed with direct CO observations (molecular-gas mass $<
10^{9.1}$ M$_{odot}$; <0.8 % of its stellar mass). Combining ALMA and JWST
observations, we estimate the gas-consumption history of this galaxy, showing
that it evolved with net zero gas inflow, i.e., gas consumption by star
formation matches the amount of gas this galaxy is missing relative to
star-forming galaxies. This could arise both from preventive feedback stopping
further gas inflow, which would otherwise refuel star formation or,
alternatively, from fine-tuned ejective feedback matching precisely gas
inflows. Our methods, applied to a larger sample, promise to disentangle
ejective vs preventive feedback.
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