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Context. Previous studies have shown the existence of an excess of emission at submillimeter (submm) and millimeter (mm) wavelengths in the spectral energy distribution (SED) of many low-metallicity galaxies. The so-called “submm excess”, whose origin remains unknown, challenges our understanding of the dust properties in low-metallicity environments. Aims. The goal of the present study is to model separately the emission from the star forming (SF) component and the emission from the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) in the nearby spiral galaxy M 33 in order to determine whether both components can be well fitted using radiation transfer models or whether there is an excess of submm emission associated with one or both of them. Methods. We decomposed the observed SED of M 33 into its SF and diffuse components. Mid-infrared (MIR) and far-infrared (FIR) fluxes were extracted from Spitzer and Herschel data. At submm and mm wavelengths, we used ground-based observations from APEX to measure the emission from the SF component and data from the Planck space telescope to estimate the diffuse emission. Both components were separately fitted using radiation transfer models based on standard dust properties (i.e., emissivity index β = 2) and a realistic geometry. The large number of previous studies helped us to estimate the thermal radio emission and to constrain an important part of the input parameters of the models. Both modeled SEDs were combined to build the global SED of M 33. In addition, the radiation field necessary to power the dust emission in our modeling was compared with observations from GALEX, Sloan, and Spitzer. Results. Our modeling is able to reproduce the observations at MIR and FIR wavelengths, but we found a strong excess of emission at submm and mm wavelengths where the model expectations severely underestimate the LABOCA and Planck fluxes. We also found that the ultraviolet (UV) radiation escaping the galaxy is 70% higher than the model predictions. From the total mass of dust derived from our modeling and the mass of atomic and molecular gas measured with the VLA and the IRAM 30 m telescope, we determined a gas-to-dust mass ratio Gdust ∼ 100, significantly lower than the value expected from the subsolar metallicity of M 33. Conclusions. We discussed different hypotheses to explain the discrepancies found in our study (i.e., excess of emission at submm and mm wavelengths, deficit of UV attenuation, and abnormally low value of Gdust), concluding that different dust properties in M 33 is the most plausible explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various different physical processes contribute to the star formation and stellar mass assembly histories of galaxies. One important approach to understanding the significance of these different processes on galaxy evolution is the study of the stellar population content of today's galaxies in a spatially resolved manner. The aim of this paper is to characterize in detail the radial structure of stellar population properties of galaxies in the nearby universe, based on a uniquely large galaxy sample, considering the quality and coverage of the data. The sample under study was drawn from the CALIFA survey and contains 300 galaxies observed with integral field spectroscopy. These cover a wide range of Hubble types, from spheroids to spiral galaxies, while stellar masses range from M⋆ ~ 109 to 7 x 1011 M ⊙. We apply the fossil record method based on spectral synthesis techniques to recover the following physical properties for each spatial resolution element in our target galaxies: the stellar mass surface density (µ⋆), stellar extinction (AV), light-weighted and mass-weighted ages (L,M), and mass-weighted metallicity (log Z⋆>M). To study mean trends with overall galaxy properties, the individual radial profiles are stacked in seven bins of galaxy morphology (E, S0, Sa, Sb, Sbc, Sc, and Sd). We confirm that more massive galaxies are more compact, older, moremetal rich, and less reddened by dust. Additionally, we find that these trends are preserved spatially with the radial distance to the nucleus. Deviations from these relations appear correlated with Hubble type: earlier types are more compact, older, and more metal rich for a given M⋆, which is evidence that quenching is related to morphology, but not driven by mass. Negative gradients of L are consistent with an inside-out growth of galaxies, with the largest L gradients in Sb-Sbc galaxies. Further, the mean stellar ages of disks and bulges are correlated and with disks covering a wider range of ages, and late-type spirals hosting younger disks. However, age gradients are only mildly negative or flat beyond R ~ 2 HLR (half light radius), indicating that star formation is more uniformly distributed or that stellar migration is important at these distances. The gradients in stellar mass surface density depend mostly on stellar mass, in the sense that more massive galaxies are more centrally concentrated. Whatever sets the concentration indices of galaxies obviously depends less on quenching/morphology than on the depth of the potential well. There is a secondary correlation in the sense that at the sameM⋆ early-type galaxies have steeper gradients. The μ⋆ gradients outside 1 HLR show no dependence on Hubble type. We find mildly negative ⋆>M gradients, which are shallower than predicted from models of galaxy evolution in isolation. In general, metallicity gradients depend on stellar mass, and less on morphology, hinting that metallicity is affected by both -- the depth of the potential well and morphology/quenching. Thus, the largest ⋆>M gradients occur in Milky Way-like Sb-Sbc galaxies, and are similar to those measured above the Galactic disk. Sc spirals show flatter ⋆>M gradients, possibly indicating a larger contribution from secular evolution in disks. The galaxies from the sample have decreasing-outward stellar extinction; all spirals show similar radial profiles, independent from the stellar mass, but redder than E and S0. Overall, we conclude that quenching processes act in manners that are independent of mass, while metallicity and galaxy structure are influenced by mass-dependent processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Galaxies in the Universe are distributed in a web-like structure characterized by different large-scale environments: dense clusters, elongated filaments, sheetlike walls and under-dense regions, called voids 1-5 . The low density in voids is expected to affect the properties of their galaxies. Indeed, previous studies 6-14 have shown that galaxies in voids are, on average, bluer and less massive, and have later morphologies and higher current star formation rates than galaxies in denser large-scale environments. However, it has never been observationally proved that the star formation histories (SFHs) in voids are substantially different from those in filaments, walls and clusters. Here we show that void galaxies have had, on average, slower SFHs than galaxies in denser large-scale environments. We also find two main SFH types present in all the environments: 'short-timescale' galaxies are not affected by their large-scale environment at early times but only later in their lives; 'long-timescale' galaxies have been continuously affected by their environment and stellar mass. Both types have evolved more slowly in voids than in filaments, walls and clusters., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Supermassive black holes, with masses more than a million times that of the Sun, seem to inhabit the centres of all massive galaxies. Cosmologically motivated theories of galaxy formation require feedback from these supermassive black holes to regulate star formation. In the absence of such feedback, state-of-the-art numerical simulations fail to reproduce the number density and properties of massive galaxies in the local Universe. There is, however, no observational evidence of this strongly coupled coevolution between supermassive black holes and star formation, impeding our understanding of baryonic processes within galaxies. Here we report that the star formation histories of nearby massive galaxies, as measured from their integrated optical spectra, depend on the mass of the central supermassive black hole. Our results indicate that the black-hole mass scales with the gas cooling rate in the early Universe. The subsequent quenching of star formation takes place earlier and more efficiently in galaxies that host higher-mass central black holes. The observed relation between black-hole mass and star formation efficiency applies to all generations of stars formed throughout the life of a galaxy, revealing a continuous interplay between black-hole activity and baryon cooling.