Evolution of red spiral galaxies with GAMA

We show that the colours of red spiral galaxies are a direct consequence of some environment-related mechanism(s) that has removed dust and gas, leading to a lower star formation rate. We conclude that this process acts on long time-scales (several Gyr) due to a lack of morphological transformation associated with the transition in optical colour.

The specific star formation rate (sSFR) and dust-to-stellar mass ratio of red spiral galaxies is found to be statistically lower than blue spiral galaxies. On the other hand, red spirals are on average 0.9dex more massive, and reside in environments 2.6 times denser than their blue counterparts. We find no evidence of excessive nuclear activity, or higher inclination angles to support these as the major causes for the red optical colours seen in >~47 per cent of all spirals in our sample.