scholarly journals Merger rates for early-type galaxies: combining clustering and luminosity function measurements

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S295) ◽  
pp. 184-184
Author(s):  
Nelson D. Padilla ◽  
Eric Gawiser ◽  
Daniel Christlein ◽  
Danilo Marchesini

AbstractWe present a study of the evolution of early-type galaxies (ETGs) that combines luminosity function and clustering measurements. This technique shows that ETGs at a given redshift evolve into brighter galaxies in the rest-frame passively evolved optical at lower redshifts. Notice that this indicates that a stellar-mass selection at different redshifts does not necessarily provide samples of galaxies in a progenitor-descendant relationship. The comparison between high redshift ETGs and their likely descendants at z = 0 points to a higher number density for the progenitors by a factor 3 to 11, implying the need for mergers to decrease their number density by today. Because the progenitor-to-descendant ratios of luminosity density are consistent with the unit value, our results show no need for strong star-formation episodes in ETGs since z = 1, which indicates that the needed mergers are dry, i.e. gas free.

2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (03) ◽  
pp. 153-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUGATA KAVIRAJ

Our current understanding of the star formation histories of early-type galaxies is reviewed, in the context of recent observational studies of their ultraviolet (UV) properties. Combination of UV and optical spectro-photometric data indicates that the bulk of the stellar mass in the early-type population forms at high redshift (z>2), possibly over short timescales (<1 Gyr). Nevertheless, early-types of all luminosities form stars over the lifetime of the Universe, with most luminous (-23<M(V)<-21) systems forming 10–15% of their stellar mass after z = 1 (with a scatter to higher value), while their less luminous (M(V)>-21) counterparts form 30–60% of their mass in the same redshift range. The large scatter in the (rest-frame) UV colours in the redshift range 0<z<0.7 indicates widespread low-level star formation in the early-type population over the last 8 billion years. The mass fraction of young (<1 Gyr old) stars in luminous early-type galaxies varies between 1% and 6% at z ~ 0 and is in the range 5–13% at z ~ 0.7. The intensity of recent star formation and the bulk of the UV colour distribution is consistent with what might be expected from minor mergers (mass ratios ≲ 1:6) in a ΛCDM cosmology.


2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (H16) ◽  
pp. 128-128
Author(s):  
Jamie R. Ownsworth ◽  
Christopher J. Conselice ◽  
Alice Mortlock ◽  
William G. Hartley ◽  
Fernando Buitrago

We investigate the resolved star formation properties of a sample of 45 massive galaxies (M* > 1011 M⊙) within a redshift range of 1.5 ⩽ z ⩽ 3 detected in the GOODS NICMOS Survey (Conselice et al. 2011), a HST H160-band imaging program. We derive the star formation rate as a function of radius using rest frame UV data from deep z850 ACS imaging. The star formation present at high redshift is then extrapolated to z = 0, and we examine the stellar mass produced in individual regions within each galaxy. We also construct new stellar mass profiles of the in situ stellar mass at high redshift from Sérsic fits to rest-frame optical, H160-band, data. We combine the two stellar mass profiles to produce an evolved stellar mass profile. We then fit a new Sérsic profile to the evolved profile, from which we examine what effect the resulting stellar mass distribution added via star formation has on the structure and size of each individual galaxy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 492 (1) ◽  
pp. 1492-1512
Author(s):  
S Gillman ◽  
A L Tiley ◽  
A M Swinbank ◽  
C M Harrison ◽  
Ian Smail ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We present an analysis of the gas dynamics of star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 1.5 using data from the KMOS Galaxy Evolution Survey. We quantify the morphology of the galaxies using HSTcandels imaging parametrically and non-parametrically. We combine the H α dynamics from KMOS with the high-resolution imaging to derive the relation between stellar mass (M*) and stellar specific angular momentum (j*). We show that high-redshift star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 1.5 follow a power-law trend in specific stellar angular momentum with stellar mass similar to that of local late-type galaxies of the form j*  ∝  M$_*^{0.53\, \pm \, 0.10}$. The highest specific angular momentum galaxies are mostly disc-like, although generally both peculiar morphologies and disc-like systems are found across the sequence of specific angular momentum at a fixed stellar mass. We explore the scatter within the j* – M* plane and its correlation with both the integrated dynamical properties of a galaxy (e.g. velocity dispersion, Toomre Qg, H α star formation rate surface density ΣSFR) and its parametrized rest-frame UV / optical morphology (e.g. Sérsic index, bulge to total ratio, clumpiness, asymmetry, and concentration). We establish that the position in the j* – M* plane is strongly correlated with the star-formation surface density and the clumpiness of the stellar light distribution. Galaxies with peculiar rest-frame UV / optical morphologies have comparable specific angular momentum to disc- dominated galaxies of the same stellar mass, but are clumpier and have higher star formation rate surface densities. We propose that the peculiar morphologies in high-redshift systems are driven by higher star formation rate surface densities and higher gas fractions leading to a more clumpy interstellar medium.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (S245) ◽  
pp. 195-200
Author(s):  
S. Kaviraj ◽  
S. K. Yi ◽  
E. Gawiser ◽  
P. G. van Dokkum ◽  
S. Khochfar ◽  
...  

AbstractWe combine deep UBV RIzJK photometry from the MUSYC survey with redshifts from the COMBO-17 survey to study the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) properties of 674 high-redshift (0.5 < z < 1) early-type galaxies, drawn from the Extended Chandra Deep Field South (E-CDFS). Galaxy morphologies are determined through visual inspection of Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images taken from the GEMS survey. We harness the sensitivity of the UV to young (<1 Gyrs old) stars to quantify the recent star formation history of the early-type population. We find compelling evidence that early-types of all luminosities form stars over the lifetime of the Universe, although the bulk of their star formation is already complete at high redshift. Luminous (−23 < M(V) < −20.5) early-types form 10-15 percent of their mass after z = 1, while their less luminous (M(V) > −20.5) counterparts form 30-60 percent of their mass in the same redshift range.


2020 ◽  
Vol 493 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Santos ◽  
D Sobral ◽  
J Matthee ◽  
J Calhau ◽  
E da Cunha ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We explore deep rest-frame UV to FIR data in the COSMOS field to measure the individual spectral energy distributions (SED) of the ∼4000 SC4K (Sobral et al.) Lyman α (Ly α) emitters (LAEs) at z ∼ 2–6. We find typical stellar masses of 109.3 ± 0.6 M⊙ and star formation rates (SFR) of SFR$_{\rm SED}=4.4^{+10.5}_{-2.4}$ M⊙ yr−1 and SFR$_{\rm Ly\,\alpha }=5.9^{+6.3}_{-2.6}$ M⊙ yr−1, combined with very blue UV slopes of $\beta =-2.1^{+0.5}_{-0.4}$, but with significant variations within the population. MUV and β are correlated in a similar way to UV-selected sources, but LAEs are consistently bluer. This suggests that LAEs are the youngest and/or most dust-poor subset of the UV-selected population. We also study the Ly α rest-frame equivalent width (EW0) and find 45 ‘extreme’ LAEs with EW0 &gt; 240 Å (3σ), implying a low number density of (7 ± 1) × 10−7 Mpc−3. Overall, we measure little to no evolution of the Ly α EW0 and scale length parameter (w0), which are consistently high (EW$_0=140^{+280}_{-70}$ Å, $w_0=129^{+11}_{-11}$ Å) from z ∼ 6 to z ∼ 2 and below. However, w0 is anticorrelated with MUV and stellar mass. Our results imply that sources selected as LAEs have a high Ly α escape fraction (fesc,Ly α) irrespective of cosmic time, but fesc,Ly α is still higher for UV-fainter and lower mass LAEs. The least massive LAEs (&lt;109.5 M⊙) are typically located above the star formation ‘main sequence’ (MS), but the offset from the MS decreases towards z ∼ 6 and towards 1010 M⊙. Our results imply a lack of evolution in the properties of LAEs across time and reveals the increasing overlap in properties of LAEs and UV-continuum selected galaxies as typical star-forming galaxies at high redshift effectively become LAEs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (1) ◽  
pp. 419-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaohan Wu ◽  
Rahul Kannan ◽  
Federico Marinacci ◽  
Mark Vogelsberger ◽  
Lars Hernquist

Abstract We present self-consistent radiation hydrodynamic simulations of hydrogen reionization performed with arepo-rt complemented by a state-of-the-art galaxy formation model. We examine how photoheating feedback, due to reionization, shapes the galaxies properties. Our fiducial model completes reionization by z ≈ 6 and matches observations of the Ly α forest, the cosmic microwave background electron scattering optical depth, the high-redshift ultraviolet (UV) luminosity function, and stellar mass function. Contrary to previous works, photoheating suppresses star formation rates by more than $50{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ only in haloes less massive than ∼108.4 M⊙ (∼108.8 M⊙) at z = 6 (z = 5), suggesting inefficient photoheating feedback from photons within galaxies. The use of a uniform UV background that heats up the gas at z ≈ 10.7 generates an earlier onset of suppression of star formation compared to our fiducial model. This discrepancy can be mitigated by adopting a UV background model with a more realistic reionization history. In the absence of stellar feedback, photoheating alone is only able to quench haloes less massive than ∼109 M⊙ at z ≳ 5, implying that photoheating feedback is sub-dominant in regulating star formation. In addition, stellar feedback, implemented as a non-local galactic wind scheme in the simulations, weakens the strength of photoheating feedback by reducing the amount of stellar sources. Most importantly, photoheating does not leave observable imprints in the UV luminosity function, stellar mass function, or the cosmic star formation rate density. The feasibility of using these observables to detect imprints of reionization therefore requires further investigation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (4) ◽  
pp. 5115-5133
Author(s):  
A A Khostovan ◽  
S Malhotra ◽  
J E Rhoads ◽  
S Harish ◽  
C Jiang ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The H α equivalent width (EW) is an observational proxy for specific star formation rate (sSFR) and a tracer of episodic, bursty star-formation activity. Previous assessments show that the H α EW strongly anticorrelates with stellar mass as M−0.25 similar to the sSFR – stellar mass relation. However, such a correlation could be driven or even formed by selection effects. In this study, we investigate how H α EW distributions correlate with physical properties of galaxies and how selection biases could alter such correlations using a z = 0.47 narrow-band-selected sample of 1572 H α emitters from the Ly α Galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization (LAGER) survey as our observational case study. The sample covers a 3 deg2 area of COSMOS with a survey comoving volume of 1.1 × 105 Mpc3. We assume an intrinsic EW distribution to form mock samples of H α emitters and propagate the selection criteria to match observations, giving us control on how selection biases can affect the underlying results. We find that H α EW intrinsically correlates with stellar mass as W0∝M−0.16 ± 0.03 and decreases by a factor of ∼3 from 107 M⊙ to 1010 M⊙, while not correcting for selection effects steepens the correlation as M−0.25 ± 0.04. We find low-mass H α emitters to be ∼320 times more likely to have rest-frame EW&gt;200 Å compared to high-mass H α emitters. Combining the intrinsic W0–stellar mass correlation with an observed stellar mass function correctly reproduces the observed H α luminosity function, while not correcting for selection effects underestimates the number of bright emitters. This suggests that the W0–stellar mass correlation when corrected for selection effects is physically significant and reproduces three statistical distributions of galaxy populations (line luminosity function, stellar mass function, EW distribution). At lower stellar masses, we find there are more high-EW outliers compared to high stellar masses, even after we take into account selection effects. Our results suggest that high sSFR outliers indicative of bursty star formation activity are intrinsically more prevalent in low-mass H α emitters and not a byproduct of selection effects.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S341) ◽  
pp. 226-230
Author(s):  
Christian Binggeli ◽  
Erik Zackrisson ◽  
Xiangcheng Ma ◽  
Akio K. Inoue ◽  
Anton Vikaeus ◽  
...  

AbstractRecently, spectroscopic detections of O[III] 88 μm and Ly-α emission lines from the z ≍ 9.1 galaxy MACS1149-JD1 have been presented, and with these, some interesting properties of this galaxy were uncovered. One such property is that MACS1149-JD1 exhibits a significant Balmer break at around rest-frame 4000 Å, which may indicate that the galaxy has experienced large variations in star formation rate prior to z ∼ 9, with a rather long period of low star formation activity. While some simulations predict large variations in star formation activity in high-redshift galaxies, it is unclear whether the simulations can reproduce the kind of variations seen in MACS1149-JD1. Here, we utilize synthetic spectra of simulated galaxies from two simulation suites in order to study to what extent these can accurately reproduce the spectral features (specifically the Balmer break) observed in MACS1149-JD1. We show that while the simulations used in this study produce galaxies with varying star formation histories, galaxies such as MACS1149-JD1 would be very rare in the simulations. In principle, future observations with the James Webb Space Telescope may tell us if MACS1149-JD1 represents something rare, or if such galaxies are more common than predicted by current simulations.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (S308) ◽  
pp. 475-476
Author(s):  
Jaan Vennik

AbstractWe studied the variation of stellar mass and various star-formation characteristics of satellite galaxies in a volume limited sample of nearby groups as a function of their group-centric distance and of their relative line-of-sight velocity in the group rest frame. We found clear radial dependencies, e.g. massive, red and passive satellites being distributed predominantly near the center of composite group. We also found some evidence of velocity modulation of star-forming properties of satellite galaxies near the group virial radius. We conclude that using kinematical data, it should be feasible to separate dynamical classes of bound, in-falling and 'backsplash' satellite galaxies.


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