The evolution of stellar mass and the implied star formation history

By S. Wilkins, N. Trentham, A. B. D. O. Astronomy, Cambridge, UK., U. Sydney, Australia.. 2008

187 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a compilation of measurements of the stellar mass density as a function of redshift. Using this stellar mass history we obtain a star formation history and compare it to the instantaneous star formation history. For z < 0.7 there is good agreement between the two star formation histories. At higher redshifts the instantaneous indicators suggest star formation rates larger than that implied by the evolution of the stellar mass density. This discrepancy peaks at z= 3 where instantaneous indicators suggest a star formation rate around 0.6 dex higher than those of the best fit to the stellar mass history. We discuss a variety of explanations for this inconsistency, such as inaccurate dust extinction corrections, incorrect measurements of stellar masses and a possible evolution of the stellar initial mass function.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/20a60dc2b6ab0ac0431d6725f41d68d68e5d866a

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. C. Conroy
4. R. Dav'e
5. R. Somerville
6. P. V. van Dokkum
7. Volker Springel
8. M. Franx

In Instrumentation

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. P. V. van Dokkum
4. C. Conroy
5. R. Dav'e
6. M. Franx
7. R. Somerville
8. Volker Springel

Citations in the corpus

• COLOR–MAGNITUDE RELATIONS OF ACTIVE AND NON-ACTIVE GALAXIES IN THE CHANDRA DEEP FIELDS: HIGH-REDSHIFT CONSTRAINTS AND STELLAR-MASS SELECTION EFFECTS (2010, background): “It has been established that the galaxy SFR density has a broad maximum atz≈ 1–4, followed by a sharp drop fromz≈ 1 toz≈ 0 (e.g., Dickinson et al. 2003a; Giavalisco et al. 2004) and a fast decrease beyondz≈ 3–4 (see, e.g., Hopkins & Beacom 2006; Wilkins et al. 2008).”
• The evolution of massive black holes and their spins in their galactic hosts (2012, background): “At higher redshift, however, the instantaneous indicators give larger SFRDs than the evolution of the stellar-mass density, and this discrepancy peaks atz ≈ 3, where the difference is∼ 0.6 dex (Wilkins, Trentham, & Hopkins 2008; Wilkins et al. 2008).”
• UniverseMachine: The correlation between galaxy growth and dark matter halo assembly from z = 0−10 (2018, background): “Calculating the true number of degrees of freedom for the observational data is difficult; for example, covariance matrices are unavailable for most SMFs, QFs, UVLFs, etc. in the literature.”
• THE COSMIC CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVA RATE DOES NOT MATCH THE MASSIVE-STAR FORMATION RATE (2011, background): “For example, an IMF with a high-mass slope shallower (−2.15; equivalent to the Baldry-Glazebrook IMF) than the Salpeter slope (−2.35) reconciles the discrepancy atz < 0.4 (Wilkins et al. 2008a).”
• Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): the star formation rate dependence of the stellar initial mass function (2011, result): “A number of recent studies now suggest an evolving or spatially varying IMF as a ‘last resort’ explanation to reconcile the observed differences (Hoversten & Glazebrook 2008; Wilkins, Trentham & Hopkins 2008b; Wilkins et al. 2008a; van Dokkum 2008; Meurer et al. 2009).”
• The galaxy stellar mass function at 3.5 ≤z ≤ 7.5 in the CANDELS/UDS, GOODS-South, and HUDF fields (2015, background): “The time integral of the SFRD, corrected for gas recycling fraction (i.e. gas lost by aging stars), has been claimed to exceed the measured SMD (Wilkins et al. 2008; Reddy & Steidel 2009; Santini et al. 2012a).”
• A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF UNCERTAINTIES AFFECTING THE STELLAR MASS–HALO MASS RELATION FOR 0 < z < 4 (2010, background): “…at z> 1 Recently, it has become clear that current estimates of the evolution in the cosmic SFR density are not consistent with estimates of the evolution of the stellar mass density at z > 1 (Nagamine et al. 2006; Hopkins & Beacom 2006; Pérez-González et al. 2008; Wilkins et al. 2008a).”
• Revealing the High-Redshift Star Formation Rate with Gamma-Ray Bursts (2008, background): “A change in the lowmass IMF withz would necessitate a rescaling (e.g., Wilkins et al. 2008).”
• Herschel PEP/HerMES: the redshift evolution (0 ≤ z ≤ 4) of dust attenuation and of the total (UV+IR) star formation rate density (2013, background): “Wilkins et al.(2008) compile measurements of the SMD from the literature and provide a best fit parametric law ρ?”
• Mass assembly in quiescent and star-forming galaxies since z ≃ 4 from UltraVISTA (2013, methodology): “We infer the star formation history from the mass density evolution following the formalism of Wilkins et al. (2008).”
• THE AVERAGE STAR FORMATION HISTORIES OF GALAXIES IN DARK MATTER HALOS FROM z = 0–8 (2012, background): “For example, most of these studies only modeled galaxy evolution fromz∼ 2 to the present due to perceived conflicts between the integrated cosmic star formation and the cosmic stellar mass density atz> 1 (Wilkins et al. 2008; Hopkins & Beacom 2006).”
• Evolution of the Intergalactic Opacity: Implications for the Ionizing Background, Cosmic Star Formation, and Quasar Activity (2008, background): “Moreover, a discrepancy of this magnitude also exists between the observationally measured stellar mass density versus redshift and the time integral of the star formation rate (Hopkins & Beacom 2006; Wilkins et al. 2008), suggesting that at least one of them is incorrectly normalized.”
• UV CONTINUUM SLOPE AND DUST OBSCURATION FROM z ∼ 6 TO z ∼ 2: THE STAR FORMATION RATE DENSITY AT HIGH REDSHIFT (2009, methodology): “Dickinson, M. 1999, After the Dark Ages: When Galaxies were Young (the Universe at 2 < Z < 5), 470, 122 Dickinson, M. et al. 2004, ApJ, 600, L99 Dow-Hygelund, C. C., et al. 2007, ApJ, 660, 47 Dunkley, J., et al. 2009, ApJS, 180, 306 Dunlop, J. S., et al. 2004, MNRAS, 350, 769 Dunlop, J. S., Cirasuol”
• Structure and Star Formation in Galaxies out to z = 3: Evidence for Surface Density Dependent Evolution and Upsizing (2008, background): “We note that some authors have argued that the star formation rates are systematically overestimated by a factor of 2-3, either because too many stars are produced (Wilkins et al. 2008), or because the specific star formation rates are much higher than theoretical models (Davé 2007).”
• THE CONTRIBUTION OF STARBURSTS AND NORMAL GALAXIES TO INFRARED LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS AT z < 2 (2012, background): “The question whether the joint evolution of MFs and IR LFs is self-consistent has received comparatively little attention, excepting studies confronting stellar MFs at z. 3– 5 with the integrated, higher-redshift star formation (SF) history (e.g., Wilkins et al. 2008, Le Borgne et al. 2009).”
• THE STAR FORMATION RATE IN THE REIONIZATION ERA AS INDICATED BY GAMMA-RAY BURSTS (2009, background): “Since both ionizing photons and GRBs are produced by massive stars, estimates of the ionizing photon emissivity from the GRB rate should be fairly robust against uncertainties in the IMF at the high-mass end (or at low masses, e.g., Wilkins et al. 2008).”
• Molecular and atomic gas in the Local Group galaxy M 33 (2010, background): “This appears to be the case indistant galaxies as well, given the factor 10 increase in (commoving) SFR density (e.g. Madau et al. 1996; Wilkins et al. 2008).”
• A Universal Stellar Initial Mass Function? A critical look at variations in extreme environments (2010, background): “If an IMF is adopted which allows concordance at low redshifts, a cosmologically varying IMF must be invoked to explain observations for z> 0.7 (Wilkins et al. 2008b).”
• The astrophysical gravitational wave stochastic background (2011, methodology): “Wilkins et al. (2008) used measurements of the stellar mass density and derived an SFR equivalent to that of Hopkins & Beacom (2006); Fardal et al. (2007) for redshifts smaller than z ∼ 0.7, but again is lower at higher redshifts.”
• Dusty Star Forming Galaxies at High Redshift (2014, background): “…cause inferred SFRs to decrease, and bring the two values into agreement (Hopkins and Beacom, 2006; Elsner et al., 2008; Pérez-González et al., 2008;Wilkins et al., 2008), though issues related to luminosity function integration as well as nebular line contamination in stellar mass estimates may…”