CONSTRAINING THE ASSEMBLY OF NORMAL AND COMPACT PASSIVELY EVOLVING GALAXIES FROM REDSHIFT z = 3 TO THE PRESENT WITH CANDELS

Journal Article · Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/775/2/106· OSTI ID:22270846

Cassata, P. ^[1]; Giavalisco, M.; Williams, C. C.; Lee, Bomee ^[2]; Guo, Yicheng; Faber, S. F.; Barro, G.; Koo, D. C. ^[3]; Renzini, A. ^[4]; Ferguson, H.; Ryan, R. E.; Grogin, N.; Koekemoer, A. ^[5]; McIntosh, D. H. ^[6]; Lu, Yu ^[7]; Bell, E. F. ^[8]; Papovich, C. J. ^[9]; Conselice, C. J. ^[10]

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1. Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, LAM (Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille) UMR 7326, F-13388 Marseille (France)
2. Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 (United States)
3. UCO/Lick Observatory, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
4. Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova (INAF-OAPD), Vicolo dell'Osservatorio 5, I-35122, Padova (Italy)
5. Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Boulevard, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
6. Department of Physics, University of Missouri, Kansas City, MO (United States)
7. Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford, CA 94309 (United States)
8. Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 500 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (United States)
9. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A and M University, College Station, TX (United States)
10. The School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham (United Kingdom)

We study the evolution of the number density, as a function of the size, of passive early-type galaxies (ETGs) with a wide range of stellar masses (10{sup 10} M{sub ☉} < M{sub *} ∼< 10{sup 11.5} M{sub ☉}) from z ∼ 3 to z ∼ 1, exploiting the unique data set available in the GOODS-South field, including the recently obtained WFC3 images as part of the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey. In particular, we select a sample of ∼107 massive (M{sub *} > 10{sup 10} M{sub ☉}), passive (SSFR < 10{sup –2} Gyr{sup –1}), and morphologically spheroidal galaxies at 1.2 < z < 3, taking advantage of the panchromatic data set available for GOODS, including VLT, CFHT, Spitzer, Chandra, and HST ACS+WFC3 data. We find that at 1 < z < 3 the passively evolving ETGs are the reddest and most massive objects in the universe, and we prove that a correlation between mass, morphology, color, and star formation activity is already in place at that epoch. We measure a significant evolution in the mass-size relation of passive ETGs from z ∼ 3 to z ∼ 1, with galaxies growing on average by a factor of two in size in a 3 Gyr timescale only. We also witness an increase in the number density of passive ETGs of 50 times over the same time interval. We find that the first ETGs to form at z ∼> 2 are all compact or ultra-compact, while normal-sized ETGs (meaning ETGs with sizes comparable to those of local counterparts of the same mass) are the most common ETGs only at z < 1. The increase of the average size of ETGs at 0 < z < 1 is primarily driven by the appearance of new large ETGs rather than by the size increase of individual galaxies.

• OSTI ID: 22270846
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 775; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ASTROPHYSICS
COLOR
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CORRELATIONS
COSMOLOGY
DENSITY
GALACTIC EVOLUTION
GALAXIES
MASS
NEAR INFRARED RADIATION
RED SHIFT
STAR EVOLUTION
STARS
UNIVERSE