The kinematic imprinting of environmental quenching in z  <  0.2 galaxies

¹ European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-straße-2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
² Excellence Cluster ORIGINS, Boltzmann-straße-2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
³ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
⁴ Institute of Physics, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Observatoire de Sauverny, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
⁵ INAF – Padua Astronomical Observatory, Vicolo Osservatorio 5, I-35122 Padova, Italy
⁶ INAF – Astronomical Observatory of Trieste, Via Tiepolo 11, I-34143 Trieste, Italy
⁷ INAF – Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory, Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50125 Florence, Italy
⁸ International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
⁹ ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
¹⁰ Faculty of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Scheiner-straße-1, 81679 Munich, Germany
¹¹ Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Karl-Schwarzschild-straße-1 Garching bei München, 85748, Germany

^★ Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 19 November 2025
Accepted: 3 March 2026

Abstract

We present the first systematic census of quenching mechanisms using kinematic asymmetries in a large sample of ∼6700 galaxies from the MaNGA survey, thus providing a unified view of what halts star formation in the local Universe (z ≲ 0.2). We quantify stellar and nebular gas disturbances through the higher-order terms of a Fourier series expansion, as implemented in the KINEMETRY package. These asymmetries serve as powerful diagnostics as different quenching mechanisms leave distinct kinematic signatures on gas and stars. Our analysis reveals that the most effective quenching pathways leave minimal kinematic imprints by the time galaxies are fully quenched. This kinematic regularity points toward slow-acting processes (≳3 Gyr) such as starvation and maintenance feedback. A striking finding emerges from our mass-matched analysis: quenched symmetric satellites are significantly more compact than their asymmetric counterparts (3.4σ), a trend that is even more pronounced for symmetric centrals (12.3σ). Our results suggest that environment drives the dominant satellite quenching pathway through rapid gas stripping followed by long-term starvation. These compact, kinematically undisturbed satellites (the most representative case within our sample) have undergone intense gas stripping and central compaction, creating bulge-like structures with old metal-rich stellar populations. Combined with halo gas cutoff and the prevention of cosmological accretion due to starvation, this creates an irreversible quenching path. Conversely, the larger sizes of disturbed quenched centrals are consistent with merger-driven growth, where dry and minor mergers account for approximately 30% of local massive quenched centrals. Internal processes, likely driven by the AGN cycle over 1–3 Gyr that prevents hot halo gas cooling, sustain quenching maintenance in this population. The absence of asymmetric satellites in the star-forming regime suggests that environmental quenching operates without significant kinematic perturbation.