SDSS-IV MaNGA: stellar population correlates with stellar root-mean-square velocity Vrms gradients or total-density-profile slopes at fixed effective velocity dispersion σe

Abstract

ABSTRACT Galaxy properties are known to correlate most tightly with the galaxy effective stellar velocity dispersion σe. Here, we look for additional trends at fixed σe using 1339 galaxies (M* ≳ 6 × 109 M⊙) with different morphologies in the MaNGA (DR14) sample with integral-field spectroscopy data. We focus on the gradients (γrms ≡ σ(Re/4)/σe) of the stellar root-mean-square velocity ($V_{\rm rms} \equiv \sqrt{V^2 + \sigma ^2}$), which we show traces the total mass density gradient γtot derived from dynamical models and, more weakly, the bulge fraction. We confirm that γrms increases with σe, age, and metallicity. We additionally find that these correlations still exist at fixed σe, where galaxies with larger γrms are found to be older and more metal-rich. It means that mass density gradients contain information of the stellar population which is not fully accounted for by σe. This result puts an extra constraint on our understanding of galaxy quenching. We compare our results with galaxies in the IllustrisTNG hydrodynamical simulations and find that, at fixed σe, similar trends exist with age, the bulge fraction, and the total mass density slope but, unlike observations, no correlation with metallicity can be detected in the simulations.