Relative importance of star-formation-quenching pathways

Determine the relative importance of halo heating, environmental processes, stellar feedback, active galactic nucleus feedback, dynamical stabilization, morphological quenching, and angular-momentum-related suppression in causing the cessation of star formation in galaxies.

Background

The paper frames the cessation of star formation as a central problem in galaxy evolution and lists multiple possible mechanisms operating on different spatial scales. These include the removal, heating, or inhibited collapse of cold gas through halo shock heating, ram-pressure stripping, tidal effects, strangulation, mergers, stellar feedback, active galactic nucleus feedback, dynamical stabilization, morphological quenching, and angular-momentum-related suppression.

The study investigates how inferred associations between quenching and galaxy properties depend on the operational definition of quenched regions, but it does not resolve the broader physical question of which proposed pathways are most important. Its feature-importance analysis identifies statistical associations rather than causal mechanisms.

References

Star formation can cease when cold gas is removed, heated, or prevented from collapsing efficiently, but the relative importance of these pathways remains debated.

— SDSS-IV MaNGA: Star Formation Cessation in Low-redshift Galaxies. III. Dependence on Quenching Criteria  (2608.24201 - Cheng et al., 25 Aug 2026) in Section 1, Introduction

Recent observations and simulations do suggest that AGN-driven outflows can affect dwarf or low-mass systems \citep[e.g.][]{Smethurst2016, Penny2018, Baldassare2020, Silk2017, Dashyan2018, Arjona2024, Salehirad2025}, but the role of such feedback remains uncertain.

— SDSS-IV MaNGA: Star Formation Cessation in Low-redshift Galaxies. III. Dependence on Quenching Criteria  (2608.24201 - Cheng et al., 25 Aug 2026) in Section 4.1, “Possible interpretations of $\Sigma_{\rm 1kpc}$”