Refining the E+A Galaxy: A Spatially Resolved Spectrophotometric Sample
  of Nearby Post-starburst Systems in SDSS-IV MaNGA (MPL-5)
  Post-starburst galaxies are crucial to disentangling the effect of star
formation and quenching on galaxy demographics. They comprise, however, a
heterogeneous population of objects, described in numerous ways. To obtain a
well-defined and uncontaminated sample, we take advantage of spatially resolved
spectroscopy to construct an unambiguous sample of E + A galaxies -
post-starburst systems with no observed ongoing star formation. Using data from
the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) Survey, in the
fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV), we have identified
30 E + A galaxies that lie within the green valley of color-stellar mass space.
We first identified E + A candidates by their central, single-fiber spectra and
(u-r) color from SDSS DR15, and then further required each galaxy to exhibit E
+ A properties throughout the entirety of the system to three effective radii.
We describe our selection criteria in detail, note common pitfalls in E + A
identification, and introduce the basic characteristics of the sample. We will
use this E + A sample, which has been assembled with stringent criteria and
thus re-establishes a well-defined subpopulation within the broader category of
post-starburst galaxies, to study the evolution of galaxies and their stellar
populations in the time just after star formation within them is fully
quenched.
