A MULTIWAVELENGTH STUDY OF TADPOLE GALAXIES IN THE HUBBLE ULTRA DEEP FIELD
- Astrophysics Science Division, Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 665, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- Randstad at Google, 1129 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto, CA (United States)
- Department of Physics, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064 (United States)
- Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 (United States)
- Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
Multiwavelength data are essential in order to provide a complete picture of galaxy evolution and to inform studies of galaxies’ morphological properties across cosmic time. Here we present the results of a multiwavelength investigation of the morphologies of “tadpole” galaxies at intermediate redshift (0.314 < z < 3.175) in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. These galaxies were previously selected from deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) F775W data based on their distinct asymmetric knot-plus-tail morphologies. Here we use deep Wide Field Camera 3 near-infrared imaging in addition to the HST optical data in order to study the rest-frame UV/optical morphologies of these galaxies across the redshift range 0.3 < z < 3.2. This study reveals that the majority of these galaxies do retain their general asymmetric morphology in the rest-frame optical over this redshift range, if not the distinct “tadpole” shape. The average stellar mass of tadpole galaxies is lower than that of field galaxies, with the effect being slightly greater at higher redshift within the errors. Estimated from spectral energy distribution fits, the average age of tadpole galaxies is younger than that of field galaxies in the lower-redshift bin, and the average metallicity is lower (whereas the specific star formation rate for tadpoles is roughly the same as field galaxies across the redshift range probed here). These average effects combined support the conclusion that this subset of galaxies is in an active phase of assembly, either late-stage merging or cold gas accretion causing localized clumpy star formation.
- OSTI ID:
- 22521859
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 814, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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