Marie Martig, Francesca Pinna, Jesús Falcón-Barroso, Ignacio Martín-Navarro, Ivan Minchev, Yuchen Ding
Published 2025-11-24, Submitted to MNRAS
We present a detailed analysis of the vertical and radial structure of mono-age stellar populations in three edge-on lenticular galaxies (FCC 153, FCC 170, and FCC 177) in the Fornax cluster, using deep MUSE observations. By measuring the half-mass radius (R$_{50}$) and half-mass height (z$_{50}$) across 1 Gyr-wide age bins, we trace the spatial evolution of stellar populations over cosmic time. All galaxies exhibit a remarkably constant disc thickness for all stars younger than ~6 Gyr, suggesting minimal secular heating and limited impact from environmental processes such as tidal shocking or harassment. Evidence of past mergers (8-10 Gyr ago) is found in the increase of z$_{50}$ for older populations. We find that accreted (metal-poor) stars have been deposited in quite thick configurations, but that the interactions only moderately thickened pre-existing stars in the galaxies, and only caused mild flaring in the outer regions of the discs. The radial structure of the discs varies across galaxies, but in all cases we find that the radial extent of mono-age populations remains constant or grows over the past 8 Gyr. This leads us to argue that within the radial range we consider, strangulation, rather than ram-pressure stripping, is the dominant quenching mechanism in those galaxies. Our results highlight the usefulness of analysing the structure of mono-age population to uncover the mechanisms driving galaxy evolution, and we anticipate broader insights from the GECKOS survey, studying 36 nearby edge-on disc galaxies.
Published 2025-11-26, 13 pages, 6 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ
We present a spatially resolved analysis of the molecular star formation law (SFL) and gravitational instability in a sample of nearby dwarf galaxies (NGC 1035, NGC 4310, NGC 4451, NGC 4701, NGC 5692, and NGC 6106), using high-resolution $^{12}$CO ($J=1\rightarrow0$) data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. We estimate the star formation rate (SFR) by combining the Galaxy Evolution Explorer near-ultraviolet and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer 12 $μ$m imaging data to examine the relationship between molecular gas and SFR densities on scales of several hundred parsecs. We find that the power-law slope of the molecular SFL ranges from 0.62 to 1.08, with an average value of N$=0.81\pm0.18$, increasing to N$=0.87\pm0.05$ when excluding galaxies with poorly constrained CO data. These results are roughly consistent with values observed in massive spiral galaxies, suggesting a universal molecular SFL when analyzed with sufficient resolution and sensitivity. Radial profiles of the Toomre $Q$ parameter remain close to unity across the disks, with minimal radial variation, consistent with a self-regulated star formation model. Our results suggest that, despite their lower mass and metallicity, star formation in dwarf galaxies is governed by the same fundamental physical processes as in larger systems. This highlights the significance of high-resolution molecular gas observations in low-mass galaxies.