Spatially Resolved Kinematics of Post-starburst Galaxies

Abstract Star-forming galaxies can reach quiescence via rapid transition through merger-triggered starbursts that consequently affect both their kinematics and star formation rates. In this work, we analyze the spatially resolved kinematics of 89 post-starburst galaxies (PSBs) with data from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey and place them in context with star-forming galaxies (SFGs) and early-type galaxies (ETGs) to study the impact of merger history on galaxy kinematics. We measure the specific angular momentum to characterize them as slow or fast rotators. We find that the MaNGA PSB sample has ~6% slow rotators, which is less than the ~14% slow rotators in the ATLAS 3D ETG sample and ~20% slow rotators in the MaNGA ETGs, and more than the ~3.5% slow rotators in the MaNGA SFGs. This implies that for PSBs to evolve into ETGs, they must still lose some angular momentum. While ETGs with higher stellar mass tend to be slow rotators, PSBs do not follow this trend. We find significant correlations between specific angular momentum and mass-weighted age for the SFG and ETG samples, but do not see any significant trends within the short PSB phase. These results indicate that significant evolution in angular momentum must continue to take place as the galaxy ages after the PSB phase. For PSBs to evolve directly into ETGs, they must undergo dry mergers to shed excess angular momentum without causing further epochs of star formation.