SDSS-IV MaNGA - An archaeological view of the cosmic star formation history

Abstract

We present the results of the archaeological analysis of the stellar populations of a sample of ~4000 galaxies observed by the SDSS-IVMaNGAsurvey using PIPE3D. Based on this analysis we extract a sample of ~150 000 star formation rates (SFRs) and stellar masses that mimic a single cosmological survey covering the redshift range between z ~ 0 and z ~ 7. We confirm that the star-forming main sequence holds as a tight relation in this range of redshifts, evolving in both the zero-point and slope. This evolution is different for local star-forming (SFGs) and retired (RGs) galaxies, with the latter presenting a stronger evolution in the zero-point and a weaker evolution in the slope. The fraction of RGs decreases rapidly with z, particularly for RGs at z ~ 0. We detect RGs well above z > 1, although not all of them are progenitors of local RGs. Finally, adopting the required corrections to make the survey complete in mass in a limited volume, we recover the cosmic SFR, stellar-mass density, and average specific SFR histories of the Universe in this wide range of look-back times. Our derivations agree with those reported by various cosmological surveys. We demonstrate that the progenitors of local RGs were more actively forming stars in the past, contributing to most of the cosmic SFR density at z > 0.5, and to most of the cosmic stellar-mass density at any redshift. They suffer a general quenching in the SFR at z ~ 0.35. Below this redshift the progenitors of local SFGs dominate the SFR density of the Universe.