The Origin of the Colour Bimodality in the Scatter of the Stellar-to-Halo Mass Relation

Recent observations reveal that there is a strong bimodality in the scatter around the galaxy stellar-to-halo mass relation (SHMR): at a given halo mass, galaxies with a higher stellar mass tend to be blue indicating a higher specific star formation rate, while galaxies having a lower stellar mass tend to be red and quiescent; or at a given stellar mass, blue galaxies tend to live in halos with lower mass while red galaxies tend to have massive host halo. This has important implications for abundance matching and halo occupancy models commonly used in cosmological studies, but its physical origin remains debated. The SIMBA cosmological galaxy formation simulation successfully reproduces these observations, enabling us to investigate the physical driver behind this phenomenon. We show that the offset from the mean SHMR is strongly correlated with both halo formation time when half the halo mass assembled, as well as galaxy transition time defined as when the stellar doubling time becomes longer than 10 Gyr. Moreover, these two quantities are anti-correlated: early formed halos tend to host late transition galaxies corresponding to blue galaxies today, and vice versa, particularly for halo masses 11.5 ≲ log Mhalo ≲ 12.8M⊙ and galaxy stellar masses log M∗ ≥ 10M⊙. Prior to their transition time, galaxies lie on the SHMR for blue galaxies. Early transition galaxies, hosted by late formed halos, have their stellar mass growth almost ceased owing to AGN feedback even though their host halos continue to accrete mass, which moves these galaxies off the blue SHMR towards the red one creating the SHMR bimodality. We then investigate why early formed halos tend to host late transition galaxies. We find two key interconnected times: the gas-to-stellar domination time when the galaxy’s cold gas mass becomes smaller than its stellar mass, and the black hole (BH) jet ignition time governed by the BH Eddington ratio. Both show strong linear correlations with the galaxy transition time. Early formed halos have higher cold gas fractions (defined by cold gas mass in central galaxy with respect to the host halo mass) with a lower stellar-to-halo mass growth ratio before the transition time compared to the median or late forming halos; this allows them to sustain their stellar growth longer. Eventually, the continued growth fed by the cold gas reservoir allows them to surpass the galaxies with early transition times. Conversely, galaxies hosted by late formed halos have less cold gas with high stellar-to-halo mass growth ratios. Hence the Eddington rate be-comes low earlier on, which triggers AGN into an energetic jet mode that heats gas, rapidly truncates further accretion and also stops star formation. These processes thus conspire to create the SHMR bimodality. In SIMBA, the cold gas evolution occurs naturally owing to the interplay of accretion and star formation feedback, while the AGN feedback transitions from a radiative mode at high Eddington ratios that is ineffective at quenching, to a jet mode at low Eddington ratios that suppresses star formation. SIMBA further includes X-ray feedback that drives the last remaining cold gas out, completing the quenching and strengthening the SHMR bimodality.