Spatially Resolved Stellar Kinematics from LEGA-C: Increased Rotational Support in z ∼ 0.8 Quiescent Galaxies

Abstract

Abstract We present stellar rotation curves and velocity dispersion profiles for 104 quiescent galaxies at z = 0.6–1 from the Large Early Galaxy Astrophysics Census (LEGA-C) spectroscopic survey. Rotation is typically probed across 10–20 kpc, or to an average of 2.7R e . Combined with central stellar velocity dispersions (σ 0) this provides the first determination of the dynamical state of a sample selected by a lack of star formation activity at large lookback time. The most massive galaxies (M ⋆ > 2 × 1011 M ⊙) generally show no or little rotation measured at 5 kpc ( ∣ V 5 ∣ / σ 0 < 0.2 in eight of ten cases), while ∼64% of less massive galaxies show significant rotation. This is reminiscent of local fast- and slow-rotating ellipticals and implies that low- and high-redshift quiescent galaxies have qualitatively similar dynamical structures. We compare ∣ V 5 ∣ / σ 0 distributions at z ∼ 0.8 and the present day by re-binning and smoothing the kinematic maps of 91 low-redshift quiescent galaxies from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey and find evidence for a decrease in rotational support since z ∼ 1. This result is especially strong when galaxies are compared at fixed velocity dispersion; if velocity dispersion does not evolve for individual galaxies then the rotational velocity at 5 kpc was an average of 94 ± 22% higher in z ∼ 0.8 quiescent galaxies than today. Considering that the number of quiescent galaxies grows with time and that new additions to the population descend from rotationally supported star-forming galaxies, our results imply that quiescent galaxies must lose angular momentum between z ∼ 1 and the present, presumably through dissipationless merging, and/or that the mechanism that transforms star-forming galaxies also reduces their rotational support.