Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Classifying Quenching Galaxies: Comparing Methods, Joseph M. Hewa

Tennessee Posters at the Capitol

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 …