20 research outputs found
A Measurement of the Assembly of Milky Way Analogues at Redshifts with Resolved Stellar Mass and Star-Formation Rate Profiles
The resolved mass assembly of Milky-Way-mass galaxies has been previously
studied in simulations, the local universe, and at higher redshifts using
infrared (IR) light profiles. To better characterize the mass assembly of Milky
Way Analogues (MWAs), as well as their changes in star-formation rate and color
gradients, we construct resolved stellar mass and star-formation rate maps of
MWA progenitors selected with abundance matching techniques up to z 2
using deep, multi-wavelength imaging data from the Hubble Frontier Fields. Our
results using stellar mass profiles agree well with previous studies that
utilize IR light profiles, showing that the inner 2 kpc of the galaxies and the
regions beyond 2 kpc exhibit similar rates of stellar mass growth. This
indicates the progenitors of MWAs from to the present do not
preferentially grow their bulges or their disks. The evolution of the
star-formation rate (SFR) profiles indicate greater decrease in SFR density in
the inner regions versus the outer regions. S\'ersic parameters indicate modest
growth in the central regions at lower redshifts, perhaps indicating slight
bulge growth. However, the S\'ersic index does not rise above until
, meaning these galaxies are still disk dominated systems. We find
that the half-mass radii of the MWA progenitors increase between ,
but remain constant at later epochs (). This implies mild bulge growth
since in MWA progenitors, in line with previous MWA mass assembly
studies.Comment: 19 Pages, 12 figures, accepted by Ap
The Progenitors of Local Ultra-massive Galaxies Across Cosmic Time: from Dusty Star-bursting to Quiescent Stellar Populations
Using the UltraVISTA catalogs, we investigate the evolution in the 11.4~Gyr
since of the progenitors of local ultra-massive galaxies (; UMGs), providing a complete and consistent
picture of how the most massive galaxies at have assembled. By selecting
the progenitors with a semi-empirical approach using abundance matching, we
infer a growth in stellar mass of 0.56 dex,
0.45~dex, and 0.27 dex from , ,
and , respectively, to . At , the progenitors of UMGs constitute
a homogeneous population of only quiescent galaxies with old stellar
populations. At , the contribution from star-forming galaxies
progressively increases, with the progenitors at being dominated by
massive (M), dusty (1--2.2 mag), star-forming (SFR100--400~M yr)
galaxies with a large range in stellar ages. At , 15\% of the
progenitors are quiescent, with properties typical of post-starburst galaxies
with little dust extinction and strong Balmer break, and showing a large
scatter in color. Our findings indicate that at least half of the stellar
content of local UMGs was assembled at , whereas the remaining was
assembled via merging from to the present. Most of the quenching of
the star-forming progenitors happened between and , in good
agreement with the typical formation redshift and scatter in age of UMGs
as derived from their fossil records. The progenitors of local UMGs, including
the star-forming ones, never lived on the blue cloud since . We propose an
alternative path for the formation of local UMGs that refines previously
proposed pictures and that is fully consistent with our findings.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures (6 of which in appendix); accepted for
publication in the Astrophysical Journa
Spectroscopic Confirmation of an Ultramassive and Compact Galaxy at Z = 3.35: A Detailed Look at an Early Progenitor of Local Giant Ellipticals
We present the first spectroscopic confirmation of an ultra-massive galaxy at redshift z\u3e3 using data from Keck-NIRSPEC, VLT-Xshooter, and GTC-Osiris. We detect strong [OIII] and Lyα emission, and weak [OII], CIV, and HeII, placing C1-23152 at a spectroscopic redshift of zspec=3.351. The modeling of the emission-line corrected spectral energy distribution results in a best-fit stellar mass of M∗=3.1+0.6−0.7×1011M⊙, a star-formation rate of \u3c7 M⊙yr−1, and negligible dust extinction. The stars appear to have formed in a short intense burst ~300-500 Myr prior to the observation epoch, setting the formation redshift of this galaxy at z~4.1. From the analysis of the line ratios and widths, and the observed flux at 24μm, we confirm the presence of a luminous hidden active galactic nucleus (AGN), with bolometric luminosity of ~1046ergs−1. Potential contamination to the observed SED from the AGN continuum is constrained, placing a lower limit on the stellar mass of 2×1011M⊙. HST/WFC3 H160 and ACS I814 images are modeled, resulting in an effective radius of re~1 kpc in the H160 band and a Sersic index n~4.4. This object may be a prototype of the progenitors of local most massive elliptical galaxies in the first 2 Gyr of cosmic history, having formed most of its stars at z\u3e4 in a highly dissipative, intense, and short burst of star formation. C1-23152 is completing its transition to a post-starburst phase while hosting a powerful AGN, potentially responsible for the quenching of the star formation activity
The Rapid Build-up of Massive Early-type Galaxies. Supersolar Metallicity, High Velocity Dispersion and Young Age for an ETG at z=3.35
Thanks to very deep spectroscopic observations carried out at the Large
Binocular Telescope, we measured simultaneously stellar age, metallicity and
velocity dispersion for C1-23152, an ETG at redshift =3.352, corresponding
to an epoch when the Universe was 1.8 Gyr old. The analysis of its
spectrum shows that this galaxy, hosting an AGN, formed and assembled
210 M shaping its morphology within the 600
Myr preceding the observations, since 4.6. The stellar population has
a mean mass-weighted age 400 Myr and it is formed between
600 Myr and 150 Myr before the observed epoch, this latter being
the time since quenching. Its high stellar velocity dispersion,
=40960 km s, confirms the high mass
(M=10 M) and the high mass density
(= M
kpc), suggesting a fast dissipative process at its origin. The analysis
points toward a supersolar metallicity, [Z/H]=0.25, in
agreement with the above picture, suggesting a star formation efficiency much
higher than the replenishment time. However, sub-solar metallicity values
cannot be firmly ruled out by our analysis. Quenching must have been extremely
efficient to reduce the star formation to SFR6.5 M yr in less
than 150 Myr. This could be explained by the presence of the AGN, even if a
causal relation cannot be established from the data. C1-23152 has the same
stellar and physical properties of the densest ETGs in the local Universe of
comparable mass, suggesting that they are C1-23152-like galaxies which evolved
to unperturbed.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ (revised to
match the ApJ version
The evolution in the stellar mass of Brightest Cluster Galaxies over the past 10 billion years
Using a sample of 98 galaxy clusters recently imaged in the near infra-red
with the ESO NTT, WIYN and WHT telescopes, supplemented with 33 clusters from
the ESO archive, we measure how the stellar mass of the most massive galaxies
in the universe, namely Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCG), increases with time.
Most of the BCGs in this new sample lie in the redshift range ,
which has been noted in recent works to mark an epoch over which the growth in
the stellar mass of BCGs stalls. From this sample of 132 clusters, we create a
subsample of 102 systems that includes only those clusters that have estimates
of the cluster mass. We combine the BCGs in this subsample with BCGs from the
literature, and find that the growth in stellar mass of BCGs from 10 billion
years ago to the present epoch is broadly consistent with recent semi-analytic
and semi-empirical models. As in other recent studies, tentative evidence
indicates that the stellar mass growth rate of BCGs may be slowing in the past
3.5 billion years. Further work in collecting larger samples, and in better
comparing observations with theory using mock images is required if a more
detailed comparison between the models and the data is to be made.Comment: 15 pages, 8 tables, 7 figures - Accepted for publication in MNRA
Beyond UVJ: Color Selection of Galaxies in the JWST Era
We present a new rest-frame color-color selection method using "synthetic
and '', colors to identify star-forming and
quiescent galaxies. Our method is similar to the widely-used versus
() diagram. However, suffers known systematics. Spectroscopic
campaigns have shown that -selected quiescent samples at
include contamination from galaxies with dust-obscured star
formation and strong emission lines. Moreover, at , colors are
extrapolated because the rest-frame J-band shifts beyond the coverage of the
deepest bandpasses at (typically /IRAC 4.5 or
future /NIRCam observations). We demonstrate that offers
improvements to at , and can be applied to galaxies in the
era. We apply selection to galaxies at from the (observed)
3D-HST and UltraVISTA catalogs, and to the (simulated) JAGUAR catalogs. We show
that extrapolation can affect color by up to 1 magnitude, but changes
color by 0.2 mag, even at . While
-selected quiescent samples are comparable to in completeness
(both achieve 85-90% at ), reduces contamination in
quiescent samples by nearly a factor of two, from 35% to 17% at
, and from 60% to 33% at . This leads to
improvements in the true-to-false-positive ratio (TP/FP), where we find TP/FP
2.2 for at , compared to TP/FP 1 for
-selected samples. This indicates that contaminants will outnumber true
quiescent galaxies in at these redshifts, while will provide
higher-fidelity samples.Comment: Submitted to Ap
<i>HST</i> F160W Imaging of Very Massive Galaxies at 1.5 < <i>z</i> < 3.0: Diversity of Structures and the Effect of Close Pairs on Number Density Estimates
We present a targeted follow-up Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 F160W imaging study of very massive galaxies (log(Mstar/M⊙)>11.2) selected from a combination of ground-based near-infrared galaxy surveys (UltraVISTA, NMBS-II, UKIDSS UDS) at 1.5zzz<3.0, however, we find evidence that quiescent galaxies are systematically larger than expected based on the extrapolation of the relation derived using lower stellar mass galaxies. We used the observed light profiles of the blended systems to decompose their stellar masses and investigate the effect of the close pairs on the measured number densities of very massive galaxies in the early universe. We estimate correction factors to account for close-pair blends and apply them to the observed stellar mass functions measured using ground-based surveys. Given the large uncertainties associated with this extreme population of galaxies, there is currently little tension between the (blending-corrected) number density estimates and predictions from theoretical models. Although we currently lack the statistics to robustly correct for close-pair blends, we show that this is a systematic effect which can reduce the observed number density of very massive galaxies by up to a factor of ∼1.5, and should be accounted for in future studies of stellar mass functions
Complete IRAC mapping of the CFHTLS-DEEP, MUSYC AND NMBS-II FIELDS
The IRAC mapping of the NMBS-II fields program is an imaging survey at 3.6
and 4.5m with the Spitzer Infrared Array Camera (IRAC). The observations
cover three Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Deep (CFHTLS-D)
fields, including one also imaged by AEGIS, and two MUSYC fields. These are
then combined with archival data from all previous programs into deep mosaics.
The resulting imaging covers a combined area of about 3 , with at least
2 hr integration time for each field. In this work, we present our data
reduction techniques and document the resulting coverage maps at 3.6 and
4.5m. All of the images are W-registered to the reference image, which is
either the z-band stack image of the 25\% best seeing images from the CFHTLS-D
for CFHTLS-D1, CFHTLS-D3, and CFHTLS-D4, or the K-band images obtained at the
Blanco 4-m telescope at CTIO for MUSYC1030 and MUSYC1255. We make all images
and coverage maps described herein publicly available via the Spitzer Science
Center.Comment: Accepted in PASP; released IRAC mosaics available upon publication of
the pape
The FENIKS Survey: Spectroscopic Confirmation of Massive Quiescent Galaxies at z ~ 3-5
The measured ages of massive, quiescent galaxies at imply that
massive galaxies quench as early as . While the number of
spectroscopic confirmations of quiescent galaxies at has increased over
the years, there are only a handful at . We report spectroscopic
redshifts of one secure () and two tentative (, )
massive () quiescent galaxies with 11 hours of
Keck/MOSFIRE -band observations. Our candidates were selected from the
FENIKS survey, which uses deep Gemini/Flamingos-2 imaging optimized
for increased sensitivity to the characteristic red colors of galaxies at with strong Balmer/4000 \AA\ breaks. The rest-frame and
colors of 3/4 quiescent candidates are consistent with Gyr old stellar
populations. This places these galaxies as the oldest objects at these
redshifts, and challenges the notion that quiescent galaxies at are all
recently-quenched, "post-starburst'' galaxies. Our spectroscopy shows that the
other quiescent-galaxy candidate is a broad-line AGN () with strong,
redshifted +[O III] emission with a velocity offset km/s,
indicative of a powerful outflow. The star-formation history of our highest
redshift candidate suggests that its progenitor was already in place by , reaching 10 by . These observations
reveal the limit of what is possible with deep near-infrared photometry and
targeted spectroscopy from the ground and demonstrate that secure spectroscopic
confirmation of quiescent galaxies at is only feasible with JWST.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, submitted to Ap