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Published April 10, 2026 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

Searching within Galaxies for the Earliest Signs of Quenching With Spatially Resolved Star Formation Histories in UVCANDELS Galaxies at z < 0.3

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon New York City College of Technology
  • 2. ROR icon Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
  • 3. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 4. Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics, USA
  • 5. ROR icon University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • 6. ROR icon National Astronomical Observatories
  • 7. ROR icon Beijing Normal University
  • 8. ROR icon Space Telescope Science Institute
  • 9. ROR icon Arizona State University
  • 10. ROR icon University of Missouri
  • 11. ROR icon University of Manchester
  • 12. ROR icon Johns Hopkins University
  • 13. ROR icon University of California, Riverside
  • 14. ROR icon Goddard Space Flight Center

Abstract

Understanding the complicated processes that regulate star formation and cause a galaxy to become quiescent is key to our comprehension of galaxy evolution. We used eight well-resolved star-forming z < 0.3 galaxies from the UVCANDELS survey, where a total of 10 Hubble Space Telescope bands, including UV follow-up in UVIS/F275W, allow us to reconstruct the star formation histories (SFHs) of regions across each galaxy. This approach provides a powerful tool to explore the spatiotemporal connection between star formation and galaxy evolution. The spatial and temporal profiles of stellar mass and star formation rate (SFR) surface density were obtained from the SFHs of these regions. We measure scaling relations and projected radial profiles of regions within each galaxy at the time of observation and at 1 Gyr lookback time, noting possible trends in the evolution. By comparing the change in star formation over time, we can infer the timing and location of star formation and see early signs of star formation shutting off before quenching occurs. We compared the SFR density–stellar mass density scaling relations for individual galaxies as they evolve from 1 Gyr lookback time. The correlation lines pivot around a log-stellar mass surface density of 7.25 [M⊙ kpc−2], which may be evidence of a self-regulating process on these scales. Radial profiles of the galaxy logarithmic specific SFR (sSFR) show an overall decrease over 1 Gyr, but five galaxies show a greater change in log(sSFR) at the outskirts than the center, indicating a possible early onset of quenching in these galaxies.

Copyright and License

© 2026. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

Acknowledgement

The analysis presented in this paper is based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract NAS5-26555. Support for Program No. HST-GO-15647 was provided through a grant from the STScI under NASA contract NAS5-26555. C.O. and E.G. acknowledge support from NASA Astrophysics Data Analysis Program grant 80NSSC22K0487. C.O. and C.W. are supported by an LSST-DA Catalyst Fellowship funded through Grant 62192 from the John Templeton Foundation to LSST Discovery Alliance, and C.W. is supported by the NSF LEAPS-MPS award 2316862. XW is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 12373009), the CAS Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research, grant No. YSBR-062, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the Xiaomi Young Talents Program, and the China Manned Space Program with grant No. CMS-CSST-2025-A06. R.A.W. acknowledges support from NASA JWST Interdisciplinary Scientist grants NAG5-12460, NNX14AN10G, and 80NSSC18K0200 from GSFC. Y.S.D acknowledges the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, grant No. 12273051.

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Additional details

Related works

Is new version of
Discussion Paper: arXiv:2511.02828 (arXiv)
Is supplemented by
Dataset: 10.17909/8s31-f778 (DOI)

Funding

National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NAS5-26555
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
80NSSC22k0487
John Templeton Foundation
62192
National Science Foundation
2316862
National Natural Science Foundation of China
12373009
Chinese Academy of Sciences
CAS Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research YSBR-062
Central Military Commission
China Manned Space Program CMS-CSST-2025-A06
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NAG5-12460
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NNX14AN10G
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
80NSSC18K020
National Natural Science Foundation of China
12273051

Dates

Submitted
2025-11-03
Accepted
2026-03-06
Available
2026-04-06
Published

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Caltech groups
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) , Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy (PMA)
Publication Status
Published