Red nuggets grow inside-out: evidence from gravitational lensing
Abstract
Here, we present a new sample of strong gravitational lens systems where both the foreground lenses and background sources are early-type galaxies. Using imaging from Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Advanced Camera for Studies (ACS) and Keck/NIRC2, we model the surface brightness distributions and show that the sources form a distinct population of massive, compact galaxies at redshifts 0.4 ≲ z ≲ 0.7, lying systematically below the size–mass relation of the global elliptical galaxy population at those redshifts. These may therefore represent relics of high-redshift red nuggets or their partly evolved descendants. We exploit the magnifying effect of lensing to investigate the structural properties, stellar masses and stellar populations of these objects with a view to understanding their evolution. We model these objects parametrically and find that they generally require two Sérsic components to properly describe their light profiles, with one more spheroidal component alongside a more envelope-like component, which is slightly more extended though still compact. This is consistent with the hypothesis of the inside-out growth of these objects via minor mergers. Lastly, we also find that the sources can be characterized by red-to-blue colour gradients as a function of radius which are stronger at low redshift – indicative of ongoingmore »
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Inst. of Astronomy
- Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics
- Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
- Univ. of Auckland (New Zealand). Dept. of Statistics
- Univ. of Groningen (The Netherlands). Kapteyn Astronomical Inst.
- Univ. de Lyon, Saint-Genis-Laval (France). Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon
- Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Kavli Inst. for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
- ASTRON, Netherlands Inst. for Radio Astronomy, Dwingeloo (The Netherlands); Kapteyn Astronomical Inst., Groningen (The Netherlands)
- Max Planck Society, Garching (Germany). Max Planck Inst. for Astrophysik
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1353201
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-76SF00515; NAS 5-26555
- Resource Type:
- Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 465; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 0035-8711
- Publisher:
- Royal Astronomical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; gravitational lensing; strong galaxies; elliptical and lenticular cD galaxies; evolution galaxies; structure
Citation Formats
Oldham, Lindsay, Auger, Matthew W., Fassnacht, Christopher D., Treu, Tommaso, Brewer, Brendon J., Koopmans, L. V. E., Lagattuta, David, Marshall, Philip, McKean, John, and Vegetti, Simona. Red nuggets grow inside-out: evidence from gravitational lensing. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2832.
Oldham, Lindsay, Auger, Matthew W., Fassnacht, Christopher D., Treu, Tommaso, Brewer, Brendon J., Koopmans, L. V. E., Lagattuta, David, Marshall, Philip, McKean, John, & Vegetti, Simona. Red nuggets grow inside-out: evidence from gravitational lensing. United States. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw2832
Oldham, Lindsay, Auger, Matthew W., Fassnacht, Christopher D., Treu, Tommaso, Brewer, Brendon J., Koopmans, L. V. E., Lagattuta, David, Marshall, Philip, McKean, John, and Vegetti, Simona. 2016.
"Red nuggets grow inside-out: evidence from gravitational lensing". United States. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw2832. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1353201.
@article{osti_1353201,
title = {Red nuggets grow inside-out: evidence from gravitational lensing},
author = {Oldham, Lindsay and Auger, Matthew W. and Fassnacht, Christopher D. and Treu, Tommaso and Brewer, Brendon J. and Koopmans, L. V. E. and Lagattuta, David and Marshall, Philip and McKean, John and Vegetti, Simona},
abstractNote = {Here, we present a new sample of strong gravitational lens systems where both the foreground lenses and background sources are early-type galaxies. Using imaging from Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Advanced Camera for Studies (ACS) and Keck/NIRC2, we model the surface brightness distributions and show that the sources form a distinct population of massive, compact galaxies at redshifts 0.4 ≲ z ≲ 0.7, lying systematically below the size–mass relation of the global elliptical galaxy population at those redshifts. These may therefore represent relics of high-redshift red nuggets or their partly evolved descendants. We exploit the magnifying effect of lensing to investigate the structural properties, stellar masses and stellar populations of these objects with a view to understanding their evolution. We model these objects parametrically and find that they generally require two Sérsic components to properly describe their light profiles, with one more spheroidal component alongside a more envelope-like component, which is slightly more extended though still compact. This is consistent with the hypothesis of the inside-out growth of these objects via minor mergers. Lastly, we also find that the sources can be characterized by red-to-blue colour gradients as a function of radius which are stronger at low redshift – indicative of ongoing accretion – but that their environments generally appear consistent with that of the general elliptical galaxy population, contrary to recent suggestions that these objects are pre-dominantly associated with clusters.},
doi = {10.1093/mnras/stw2832},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1353201},
journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
issn = {0035-8711},
number = 3,
volume = 465,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Nov 03 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Thu Nov 03 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}
Web of Science
Works referenced in this record:
The Sloan lens acs Survey. ix. Colors, Lensing, and Stellar Masses of Early-Type Galaxies
journal, October 2009
- Auger, M. W.; Treu, T.; Bolton, A. S.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 705, Issue 2
Dark Matter Contraction and the Stellar Content of Massive Early-Type Galaxies: Disfavoring “Light” Initial mass Functions
journal, September 2010
- Auger, M. W.; Treu, T.; Gavazzi, R.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 721, Issue 2
A compact early-type galaxy at z= 0.6 under a magnifying lens: evidence for inside-out growth: Super-resolving a compact ETG at z = 0.6
journal, December 2010
- Auger, M. W.; Treu, T.; Brewer, B. J.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, Vol. 411, Issue 1
Fast Calculation of a Family of Elliptical Gravitational Lens Models
journal, August 1998
- Barkana, Rennan
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 502, Issue 2
CANDELS: THE PROGENITORS OF COMPACT QUIESCENT GALAXIES AT z ∼ 2
journal, February 2013
- Barro, Guillermo; Faber, S. M.; Pérez-González, Pablo G.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 765, Issue 2
VELOCITY DISPERSIONS AND DYNAMICAL MASSES FOR A LARGE SAMPLE OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES AT z > 1: IMPROVED MEASURES OF THE GROWTH IN MASS AND SIZE
journal, February 2014
- Belli, Sirio; Newman, Andrew B.; Ellis, Richard S.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 783, Issue 2
The Sloan Lens ACS Survey. I. A Large Spectroscopically Selected Sample of Massive Early‐Type Lens Galaxies
journal, February 2006
- Bolton, Adam S.; Burles, Scott; Koopmans, Leon V. E.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 638, Issue 2
Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
journal, October 2003
- Bruzual, G.; Charlot, S.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 344, Issue 4
Newly Quenched Galaxies as the Cause for the Apparent Evolution in Average size of the Population
journal, August 2013
- Carollo, C. M.; Bschorr, T. J.; Renzini, A.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 773, Issue 2
The Stellar Initial mass Function in Early-Type Galaxies from Absorption line Spectroscopy. ii. Results
journal, November 2012
- Conroy, Charlie; van Dokkum, Pieter G.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 760, Issue 1
Passively Evolving Early‐Type Galaxies at 1.4 ≲ z ≲ 2.5 in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
journal, June 2005
- Daddi, E.; Renzini, A.; Pirzkal, N.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 626, Issue 2
RED NUGGETS AT z ∼ 1.5: COMPACT PASSIVE GALAXIES AND THE FORMATION OF THE KORMENDY RELATION
journal, March 2009
- Damjanov, Ivana; McCarthy, Patrick J.; Abraham, Roberto G.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 695, Issue 1
RED NUGGETS AT HIGH REDSHIFT: STRUCTURAL EVOLUTION OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES OVER 10 Gyr OF COSMIC HISTORY
journal, September 2011
- Damjanov, Ivana; Abraham, Roberto G.; Glazebrook, Karl
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 739, Issue 2
The formation history of elliptical galaxies
journal, February 2006
- De Lucia, G.; Springel, V.; White, S. D. M.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 366, Issue 2
The Dramatic Size Evolution of Elliptical Galaxies and the Quasar Feedback
journal, November 2008
- Fan, L.; Lapi, A.; De Zotti, G.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 689, Issue 2
Cosmic Evolution of size and Velocity Dispersion for Early-Type Galaxies
journal, July 2010
- Fan, L.; Lapi, A.; Bressan, A.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 718, Issue 2
emcee : The MCMC Hammer
journal, March 2013
- Foreman-Mackey, Daniel; Hogg, David W.; Lang, Dustin
- Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 125, Issue 925
Multicolor surface photometry of 17 ellipticals
journal, August 1989
- Franx, Marijn; Illingworth, Garth; Heckman, Timothy
- The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 98
How do minor mergers promote inside-out growth of ellipticals, transforming the size, density profile and dark matter fraction?
journal, January 2013
- Hilz, Michael; Naab, Thorsten; Ostriker, J. P.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 429, Issue 4
Compact high-redshift galaxies are the cores of the most massive present-day spheroids
journal, September 2009
- Hopkins, Philip F.; Bundy, Kevin; Murray, Norman
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 398, Issue 2
COMPACT QUIESCENT GALAXIES AT INTERMEDIATE REDSHIFTS ,
journal, November 2014
- Hsu, Li-Yen; Stockton, Alan; Shih, Hsin-Yi
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 796, Issue 2
Can AGN feedback-driven star formation explain the size evolution of massive galaxies?
journal, March 2013
- Ishibashi, W.; Fabian, A. C.; Canning, R. E. A.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 431, Issue 3
Some Aspects of Measurement Error in Linear Regression of Astronomical Data
journal, August 2007
- Kelly, Brandon C.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 665, Issue 2
Chemodynamical Evolution of Elliptical Galaxies: Metallicity Gradients and Scaling Relations
journal, January 2004
- Kobayashi, Chiaki
- Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, Vol. 21, Issue 2
Gravitational imaging of cold dark matter substructures: Gravitational imaging of CDM substructures
journal, October 2005
- Koopmans, L. V. E.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 363, Issue 4
The SAURON project - XVII. Stellar population analysis of the absorption line strength maps of 48 early-type galaxies: The SAURON project - XVII
journal, August 2010
- Kuntschner, Harald; Emsellem, Eric; Bacon, Roland
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 408, Issue 1
Adaptive Optics Observations of B0128+437: a Low-Mass, High-Redshift Gravitational lens
journal, June 2010
- Lagattuta, David J.; Auger, Matthew W.; Fassnacht, Christopher D.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 716, Issue 2
Superresolving Distant Galaxies with Gravitational Telescopes: Keck Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics and Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of the Lens System SDSS J0737+3216
journal, December 2007
- Marshall, Philip J.; Treu, Tommaso; Melbourne, Jason
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 671, Issue 2
Can Minor Merging Account for the size Growth of Quiescent Galaxies? new Results from the Candels Survey
journal, February 2012
- Newman, Andrew B.; Ellis, Richard S.; Bundy, Kevin
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 746, Issue 2
The Sloan lens acs Survey. xi. Beyond Hubble Resolution: Size, Luminosity, and Stellar mass of Compact Lensed Galaxies at Intermediate Redshift
journal, June 2011
- Newton, Elisabeth R.; Marshall, Philip J.; Treu, Tommaso
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 734, Issue 2
Size and velocity-dispersion evolution of early-type galaxies in a Λ cold dark matter universe: Evolution of early-type galaxies
journal, March 2012
- Nipoti, Carlo; Treu, Tommaso; Leauthaud, Alexie
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 422, Issue 2
CCD surface photometry of galaxies with dynamical data. II - UBR photometry of 39 elliptical galaxies
journal, October 1990
- Peletier, Reynier F.; Davies, Roger L.; Illingworth, Garth D.
- The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 100
Superdense Galaxies and the Mass-Size Relation at low Redshift
journal, December 2012
- Poggianti, B. M.; Calvi, R.; Bindoni, D.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 762, Issue 2
The imprint of dark matter haloes on the size and velocity dispersion evolution of early-type galaxies
journal, March 2014
- Posti, Lorenzo; Nipoti, Carlo; Stiavelli, Massimo
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 440, Issue 1
Size evolution of spheroids in a hierarchical Universe
journal, October 2012
- Shankar, Francesco; Marulli, Federico; Bernardi, Mariangela
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 428, Issue 1
The size distribution of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
journal, August 2003
- Shen, S.; Mo, H. J.; White, S. D. M.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 343, Issue 3
A Catalog of Bulge+Disk Decompositions and Updated Photometry for 1.12 Million Galaxies in the Sloan Digital sky Survey
journal, August 2011
- Simard, Luc; Trevor Mendel, J.; Patton, David R.
- The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 196, Issue 1
PURELY DRY MERGERS DO NOT EXPLAIN THE OBSERVED EVOLUTION OF MASSIVE EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES SINCE z ∼ 1
journal, April 2014
- Sonnenfeld, Alessandro; Nipoti, Carlo; Treu, Tommaso
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 786, Issue 2
Two Moderate-Redshift Analogs to Compact Massive Early-Type Galaxies at high Redshifts
journal, January 2010
- Stockton, Alan; Shih, Hsin-Yi; Larson, Kirsten
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 709, Issue 1
A Search for Moderate-Redshift Survivors from the Population of Luminous Compact Passive Galaxies at high Redshift
journal, December 2013
- Stockton, Alan; Shih, Hsin-Yi; Larson, Kirsten
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 780, Issue 2
Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Main Galaxy Sample
journal, September 2002
- Strauss, Michael A.; Weinberg, David H.; Lupton, Robert H.
- The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 124, Issue 3
A cosmological context for compact massive galaxies
journal, April 2015
- Stringer, Martin; Trujillo, Ignacio; Dalla Vecchia, Claudio
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 449, Issue 3
Color Gradients in Early-Type Galaxies in Abell 2199
journal, August 2003
- Tamura, Naoyuki; Ohta, Kouji
- The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 126, Issue 2
On the Dearth of Compact, Massive, red Sequence Galaxies in the Local Universe
journal, August 2010
- Taylor, Edward N.; Franx, Marijn; Glazebrook, Karl
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 720, Issue 1
AGN jet-induced feedback in galaxies - II. Galaxy colours from a multicloud simulation
journal, June 2009
- Tortora, C.; Antonuccio-Delogu, V.; Kaviraj, S.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 396, Issue 1
Colour and stellar population gradients in galaxies: correlation with mass: Colour gradients
journal, July 2010
- Tortora, C.; Napolitano, N. R.; Cardone, V. F.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 407, Issue 1
Colour gradients of high-redshift early-type galaxies from hydrodynamical monolithic models
journal, August 2013
- Tortora, C.; Pipino, A.; D'Ercole, A.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 435, Issue 1
Towards a census of supercompact massive galaxies in the Kilo Degree Survey
journal, February 2016
- Tortora, C.; La Barbera, F.; Napolitano, N. R.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 457, Issue 3
Massive Dark Matter Halos and Evolution of Early‐Type Galaxies to z ≈ 1
journal, August 2004
- Treu, Tommaso; Koopmans, Leon V. E.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 611, Issue 2
Extremely compact massive galaxies at z 1.4
journal, November 2006
- Trujillo, I.; Feulner, G.; Goranova, Y.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, Vol. 373, Issue 1
Superdense Massive Galaxies in Wings Local Clusters
journal, February 2010
- Valentinuzzi, T.; Fritz, J.; Poggianti, B. M.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 712, Issue 1
SUPERDENSE MASSIVE GALAXIES IN THE ESO DISTANT CLUSTER SURVEY (EDisCS)
journal, August 2010
- Valentinuzzi, T.; Poggianti, B. M.; Saglia, R. P.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 721, Issue 1
3D-HST+CANDELS: THE EVOLUTION OF THE GALAXY SIZE-MASS DISTRIBUTION SINCE z = 3
journal, May 2014
- van der Wel, A.; Franx, M.; van Dokkum, P. G.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 788, Issue 1
Confirmation of the Remarkable Compactness of Massive Quiescent Galaxies at z ~ 2.3: Early-Type Galaxies Did not Form in a Simple Monolithic Collapse
journal, March 2008
- van Dokkum, Pieter G.; Franx, Marijn; Kriek, Mariska
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 677, Issue 1
Forming Compact Massive Galaxies
journal, October 2015
- van Dokkum, Pieter G.; Nelson, Erica June; Franx, Marijn
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 813, Issue 1
Bayesian strong gravitational-lens modelling on adaptive grids: objective detection of mass substructure in Galaxies
journal, January 2009
- Vegetti, S.; Koopmans, L. V. E.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 392, Issue 3
Gravitational detection of a low-mass dark satellite galaxy at cosmological distance
journal, January 2012
- Vegetti, S.; Lagattuta, D. J.; McKean, J. P.
- Nature, Vol. 481, Issue 7381
Semilinear Gravitational Lens Inversion
journal, June 2003
- Warren, S. J.; Dye, S.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 590, Issue 2
ON SIZES, KINEMATICS, M / L GRADIENTS, AND LIGHT PROFILES OF MASSIVE COMPACT GALAXIES AT z ∼ 2
journal, October 2010
- Wuyts, Stijn; Cox, Thomas J.; Hayward, Christopher C.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 722, Issue 2
Works referencing / citing this record:
Cosmological Distance Indicators
journal, July 2018
- Suyu, Sherry H.; Chang, Tzu-Ching; Courbin, Frédéric
- Space Science Reviews, Vol. 214, Issue 5
On the determination of transportation, range and distribution characteristics of Uranium-238, Thorium-232 and Potassium-40: a critical review
journal, December 2019
- Külahcı, Fatih; Çiçek, Şerif
- Environmental Earth Sciences, Vol. 78, Issue 24
Bright compact bulges at intermediate redshifts
journal, May 2018
- Sachdeva, Sonali; Saha, Kanak
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 478, Issue 1
AutoLens: automated modeling of a strong lens’s light, mass, and source
journal, May 2018
- Nightingale, J. W.; Dye, S.; Massey, Richard J.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 478, Issue 4
SHARP – V. Modelling gravitationally lensed radio arcs imaged with global VLBI observations
journal, May 2018
- Spingola, C.; McKean, J. P.; Auger, M. W.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 478, Issue 4
A gravitationally lensed quasar discovered in OGLE
journal, February 2018
- Kostrzewa-Rutkowska, Zuzanna; Kozłowski, Szymon; Lemon, Cameron
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 476, Issue 1
Resolving Quiescent Galaxies at z ≳ 2. I. Search for Gravitationally Lensed Sources and Characterization of Their Structure, Stellar Populations, and Line Emission
journal, July 2018
- Newman, Andrew B.; Belli, Sirio; Ellis, Richard S.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 862, Issue 2
A Gravitationally Lensed Quasar Discovered in OGLE
text, January 2018
- Kostrzewa-Rutkowska, Z.; Kozłowski, S.; Lemon, C.
- arXiv
Resolving Quiescent Galaxies at $z \gtrsim 2$: I. Search for Gravitationally Lensed Sources and Characterization of their Structure, Stellar Populations, and Line Emission
text, January 2018
- Newman, Andrew B.; Belli, Sirio; Ellis, Richard S.
- arXiv
SHARP - V. Modelling gravitationally-lensed radio arcs imaged with global VLBI observations
text, January 2018
- Spingola, C.; McKean, J. P.; Auger, M. W.
- arXiv
Cosmological Distance Indicators
journal, July 2018
- Suyu, Sherry H.; Chang, Tzu-Ching; Courbin, Frédéric
- Space Science Reviews, Vol. 214, Issue 5