The identification of post-starburst galaxies at z~1 using multiwavelength photometry: a spectroscopic verification

Understand

Despite decades of study, we still do not fully understand why some massive galaxies abruptly switch off their star formation in the early Universe, and what causes their rapid transition to the red sequence.

• Post-starburst galaxies provide a rare opportunity to study this transition phase, but few have currently been spectroscopically identified at high redshift ($z>1$).
• In this paper we present the spectroscopic verification of a new photometric technique to identify post-starbursts in high-redshift surveys.
• The method classifies the broad-band optical-near--infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies using three spectral shape parameters (super-colours), derived from a principal component analysis of model SEDs.