title: Suppressing star formation in quiescent galaxies with supermassive black hole winds.
abstract: Quiescent galaxies with little or no ongoing star formation dominate the population of galaxies with masses above 2 × 10(10) times that of the Sun; the number of quiescent galaxies has increased by a factor of about 25 over the past ten billion years (refs 1-4). Once star formation has been shut down, perhaps during the quasar phase of rapid accretion onto a supermassive black hole, an unknown mechanism must remove or heat the gas that is subsequently accreted from either stellar mass loss or mergers and that would otherwise cool to form stars. Energy output from a black hole accreting at a low rate has been proposed, but observational evidence for this in the form of expanding hot gas shells is indirect and limited to radio galaxies at the centres of clusters, which are too rare to explain the vast majority of the quiescent population. Here we report bisymmetric emission features co-aligned with strong ionized-gas velocity gradients from which we infer the presence of centrally driven winds in typical quiescent galaxies that host low-luminosity active nuclei. These galaxies are surprisingly common, accounting for as much as ten per cent of the quiescent population with masses around 2 × 10(10) times that of the Sun. In a prototypical example, we calculate that the energy input from the galaxy's low-level active supermassive black hole is capable of driving the observed wind, which contains sufficient mechanical energy to heat ambient, cooler gas (also detected) and thereby suppress star formation.
authors.affiliation: Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (World Premier International Research Center Initiative), The University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan.
authors.forename: Edmond
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.affiliation: Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (World Premier International Research Center Initiative), The University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bundy
authors.affiliation: Sub-department of Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, UK.
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cappellari
authors.affiliation: Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (World Premier International Research Center Initiative), The University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan.|Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (UMR 7095, CNRS and UPMC), 98 bis Boulevard Arago, F-75014 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Sébastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Peirani
authors.affiliation: Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (World Premier International Research Center Initiative), The University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan.|Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, 254 Phayathai Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand.
authors.forename: Wiphu
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Rujopakarn
authors.affiliation: Institute for Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Dennis Sciama Building, Burnaby Road, Portsmouth PO1 3FX, UK.
authors.forename: Kyle
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Westfall
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, 505 Rose Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0055, USA.
authors.forename: Renbin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 North Charter Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bershady
authors.affiliation: Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA.
authors.forename: Jenny E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Greene
authors.affiliation: Center for Astrophysical Sciences, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA.
authors.forename: Timothy M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Heckman
authors.affiliation: McDonald Observatory, Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Austin, Texas 78712-0259, USA.
authors.forename: Niv
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Drory
authors.affiliation: Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA.
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Law
authors.affiliation: Institute for Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Dennis Sciama Building, Burnaby Road, Portsmouth PO1 3FX, UK.
authors.forename: Karen L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Masters
authors.affiliation: Institute for Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Dennis Sciama Building, Burnaby Road, Portsmouth PO1 3FX, UK.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.affiliation: Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 North Charter Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.|Department of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK.
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Wake
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9SS, UK.
authors.forename: Anne-Marie
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Weijmans
authors.affiliation: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Kate
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rubin
authors.affiliation: Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 19 J. J. Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.|Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Belfiore
authors.affiliation: Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (World Premier International Research Center Initiative), The University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan.
authors.forename: Benedetta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vulcani
authors.affiliation: Department of Astronomy, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Yan-mei
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, 505 Rose Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0055, USA.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: New York University Abu Dhabi, PO Box 129188, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.|Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, New York University, Meyer Hall of Physics, 4 Washington Place, New York, New York 10003, USA.
authors.forename: Joseph D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Gelfand
authors.affiliation: Apache Point Observatory and New Mexico State University, PO Box 59, Sunspot, New Mexico 88349-0059, USA.|Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: Dmitry
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bizyaev
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física y Astronomía, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de La Serena, Cisternas 1200, La Serena, Chile.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roman-Lopes
authors.affiliation: Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.|Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Donald P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Schneider