Star Formation Shut Down by Multiphase Gas Outflow in a Galaxy at a Redshift of 2.45

Sirio Belli; Minjung Park; Rebecca L Davies; J Trevor Mendel; Benjamin D Johnson; Charlie Conroy; Chloë Benton; Letizia Bugiani; Razieh Emami; Joel Leja; Yijia Li; Gabriel Maheson; Elijah P Mathews; Rohan P Naidu; Erica J Nelson; Sandro Tacchella; Bryan A Terrazas; Rainer Weinberger

doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07412-1

Star Formation Shut Down by Multiphase Gas Outflow in a Galaxy at a Redshift of 2.45

Nature. 2024 Apr 22. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07412-1. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Sirio Belli¹, Minjung Park², Rebecca L Davies^{3

4}, J Trevor Mendel^{4

5}, Benjamin D Johnson², Charlie Conroy², Chloë Benton⁶, Letizia Bugiani⁷, Razieh Emami², Joel Leja^{8

9

10}, Yijia Li^{8

9}, Gabriel Maheson^{11

12}, Elijah P Mathews^{8

9

10}, Rohan P Naidu¹³, Erica J Nelson⁶, Sandro Tacchella^{11

12}, Bryan A Terrazas¹⁴, Rainer Weinberger¹⁵

Affiliations

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy. sirio.belli@unibo.it.
² Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA.
³ Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia.
⁴ ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), <City>, Australia.
⁵ Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
⁶ Department for Astrophysical and Planetary Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA.
⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
⁸ Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
⁹ Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
¹⁰ Institute for Computational & Data Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
¹¹ Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
¹² Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
¹³ MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Cambridge, MA, USA.
¹⁴ Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁵ Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics, Potsdam, Germany.

PMID: 38648852
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07412-1

Abstract

Large-scale outflows driven by supermassive black holes are thought to play a fundamental role in suppressing star formation in massive galaxies. However, direct observational evidence for this hypothesis is still lacking, particularly in the young universe where star formation quenching is remarkably rapid^1-3, thus requiring effective removal of gas⁴ as opposed to slow gas heating^5,6. While outflows of ionized gas are commonly detected in massive distant galaxies⁷, the amount of ejected mass is too small to be able to suppress star formation^8,9. Gas ejection is expected to be more efficient in the neutral and molecular phases¹⁰, but at high redshift these have only been observed in starbursts and quasars^11,12. Here we report JWST spectroscopy of a massive galaxy experiencing rapid quenching at redshift z = 2.445. We detect a weak outflow of ionized gas and a powerful outflow of neutral gas, with a mass outflow rate that is sufficient to quench the star formation. Neither X-ray or radio activity are detected; however, the presence of a supermassive black hole is suggested by the properties of the ionized gas emission lines. We thus conclude that supermassive black holes are able to rapidly suppress star formation in massive galaxies by efficiently ejecting neutral gas.