Paper detail

Cool gas accretion, thermal evaporation and quenching of star formation in elliptical galaxies

The most evident features of colour-magnitude diagrams of galaxies are the red sequence of quiescent galaxies, extending up to the brightest elliptical galaxies, and the blue cloud of star-forming galaxies, which is truncated at a luminosity L~L*. The truncation of the blue cloud indicates that in the most massive systems star formation must be quenched. For this to happen the virial-temperature galactic gas must be kept hot and any accreted cold gas must be heated. The elimination of accreted cold gas can be due to thermal evaporation by the hot interstellar medium, which in turn is prevented from cooling by feedback from active galactic nuclei.