Identifying and Distinguishing Quenching Galaxies with Spatially Resolved Star Formation in the Hubble Frontier Fields

Abstract

We investigate the nature and prevalence of different quenching signatures for 1437 galaxies with $M_{*} \geqslant 10^{8}~\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ and $\text{SFR} \geqslant 10^{-3}~M_{\odot}~\text{yr}^{-1}$ in the Hubble Frontier Fields through spatially resolved spectral energy distribution fitting with \texttt{FAST++}. We use the morphological metrics previously presented in our series of investigations to quantify the distribution of star formation, and use a $k$-nearest neighbors algorithm to classify quenching galaxies into different quenching pathways, including an inside-out pathway and an outside-in pathway. We find 129 galaxies have morphologies consistent with an inside-out quenching pathway, and 70 are consistent with an outside-in pathway. Inside-out quenching galaxies are $0.8^{+0.2}_{-0.1}~\text{dex}$ more massive compared to outside-in quenching galaxies, where both populations are more massive in clusters than the field, by $0.8^{+0.3}_{-0.1}~\text{dex}$. Inside-out quenching galaxies are found more often in clusters (106/129), compared to outside-in quenching galaxies (25/70). In clusters, the fraction of inside-out quenching galaxies strongly increases with mass, representing ${\sim}$30% of the non-quenched galaxy population at high masses. A milder evolution is seen in the field. The fraction of outside-in quenching galaxies is independent of mass, representing ${\lesssim}$10% of the non-quenched population, in both the cluster and field. We find no strong dependence for the fraction of any population with estimated infall time, except massive inside-out quenching galaxies, which increase in fraction with increasing infall time.