Recently quenched elliptical galaxies in SDSS

Through careful inspection, we distinguish elliptical from non-elliptical morphologies among a large sample of similarly blue galaxies with high central light concentrations (c_r_>=2.6). These blue ellipticals comprise 3.7 per cent of all c_r>=2.6 galaxies with stellar masses between 10^10^ and 10^11^h^-2^M_{sun}_.

Using published fibre spectrum diagnostics, we identify a unique subset of 172 non-star-forming ellipticals with distinctly blue urz colours and young (<3Gyr) light-weighted stellar ages. These recently quenched ellipticals (RQEs) have a number density of 2.7-4.7x10^-5^h^3^/Mpc^3^ and sufficient numbers above 2.5x10^10^h^-2^M_{sun}_ to account for more than half of the expected quiescent growth at late cosmic time assuming that this phase lasts 0.5Gyr.