Size Evolution of the Most Massive Galaxies at 1.7 < z < 3 from GOODS NICMOS Survey Imaging

By F. Buitrago, Ignacio Trujillo, Christopher J. Conselice, R. Bouwens, Mark Dickinson, Haojing Yan. 2008

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We measure the sizes of 82 massive (M ⩾ 1011 M☉) galaxies at 1.7 ⩽ z ⩽ 3 utilizing deep HST NICMOS data taken in the GOODS North and South fields. Our sample is almost an order of magnitude larger than previous studies at these redshifts, providing the first statistical study of massive galaxy sizes at z > 2, confirming the extreme compactness of these systems. We split our sample into disk-like (n ⩽ 2) and spheroid-like (n > 2) galaxies based on their Sérsic indices, and find that at a given stellar mass disk-like galaxies at z ∼ 2.3 are a factor of 2.6 ± 0.3 smaller than present-day equal-mass systems, and spheroid-like galaxies at the same redshifts are 4.3 ± 0.7 smaller than comparatively massive elliptical galaxies today. At z > 2 our results are compatible with both a leveling off, or a mild evolution in size. Furthermore, the high density (~2 × 1010 M☉ kpc−3) of massive galaxies at these redshifts, which are similar to present-day globular clusters, possibly makes any further evolution in sizes beyond z = 3 unlikely.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Global and Planetary Change, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3bf19eb6081ab81e1d44f0facad2b5fd5e854dc2

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Citations in the corpus

SUPERDENSE MASSIVE GALAXIES IN THE NEARBY UNIVERSE (2009, background): “…massive local counteparts; Trujillo et al. 2007, Longhetti et al. 2007, Zirm et al. 2007, Toft et al. 2007, Cimatti et al. 2008, van Dokkum et al. 2008, Buitrago et al. 2008; van der Wel et al. 2008) forces us to face the question of how these high–z galaxies have evolved into the present-day…”
Discriminating Between the Physical Processes that Drive Spheroid Size Evolution (2009, background): “…galaxy formation models have difficulty explaining how systems could catch up from the most extreme size evolution seen in the observations: a factor of ∼6 smaller effective radii Re at fixed stellar mass in the most massive galaxies at z = 2 (see Toft et al. 2007; Buitrago et al. 2008).”
The dependence of Type Ia Supernovae luminosities on their host galaxies (2010, methodology): “We also use J , H and K imaging taken as part of the GOODS NICMOS survey (e.g. Buitrago et al. 2008), as well as ground-based data (Retzlaff et al. 2009).”
STRUCTURE AND FORMATION OF ELLIPTICAL AND SPHEROIDAL GALAXIES (2008, background): “…is missing from our present picture but that almost certainly affectedthe formation of core ellipticals includes: (1) The merger progenitors that made core ellipticals may have been different from all galaxies seen today (e. g., Naab& Ostriker 2008; Buitrago et al. 2008; van der Wel et al. 2008).”
The formation of massive, compact galaxies at z = 2 in the Illustris simulation (2014, background): “Compact galaxies like these are rare in the local universe (Trujillo et al. 2007; Toft et al. 2007; Buitrago et al. 2008; Cimatti ?”
SIZES AND SURFACE BRIGHTNESS PROFILES OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES AT z ∼ 2 (2011, methodology): “We fit a power law of the form re ∝ (1+ z)α and findα = −0.94± 0.16, which is comparable to e.g., van der Wel et al. (2008) and van de Sande et al. (2011), but slightly steeper than Newman et al. (2010) and significantly shallower than Buitrago et al. (2008).”
THE EVOLVING RELATIONS BETWEEN SIZE, MASS, SURFACE DENSITY, AND STAR FORMATION IN 3 × 104 GALAXIES SINCE z = 2 (2009, result): “…of comparable mass. Similar results have been found by other authors at high redshift (e.g., Daddi et al. 2005; Toft et al. 2007; Franx et al. 2008; Buitrago et al. 2008; Cimatti et al. 2008), but with the larger sample size considered here, detailed investigations into the correlations between…”
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): mass–size relations of z < 0.1 galaxies subdivided by Sérsic index, colour and morphology (2014, background): “…continue to identify a clear disconnect between the M∗−Re relation of nearby galaxies and those at intermediate to high redshift (McIntosh et al. 2005; Trujillo et al. 2007; Buitrago et al. 2008; van der Wel et al. 2008; Damjanov et al. 2009; Williams, Bureau & Cappellari 2010; Bruce et al. 2012).”
THE GROWTH OF MASSIVE GALAXIES SINCE z = 2 (2009, background): “…with the lowest star formation rates (Daddi et al. 2005; Trujillo et al. 2006, 2007; Toft et al. 2007; Zirm et al. 2007; van Dokkum et al. 2008; Cimatti et al. 2008; van der Wel et al. 2008; Franx et al. 2008; Buitrago et al. 2008; Stockton et al. 2008; Damjanov et al. 2009; Williams et al. 2009).”
Early type galaxies have been the predominant morphological class for massive galaxies since only z~1 (2011, methodology): “The disappearance of these tails is also connected with the dramatic size evolution reported in previous works (see e.g. Trujillo et al. 2007; Buitrago et al. 2008; Trujillo, Ferreras & De la Rosa 2011).”
The sizes, masses and specific star formation rates of massive galaxies at 1.3 < z < 1.5: strong evidence in favour of evolution via minor mergers (2012, background): “…morphological k-corrections or even unresolved active galactic nuclei (AGN) components (e.g. Daddi et al. 2005), deep, high-resolution, near-IR imaging has conclusively demonstrated the compactness of many massive (M ≥ 1011 M ) galaxies at z ≥ 1 (e.g. Buitrago et al. 2008; Damjanov et al. 2009).”
Structural and Star-forming Relations since z ∼ 3: Connecting Compact Star-forming and Quiescent Galaxies (2015, result): “Such decline is much steeper for quiescent galaxies than for SFGs (1 dex vs. 0.3 dex) as noted in previous works (Buitrago et al. 2008; Newman et al. 2012; van der Wel et al. 2014).”
SUPERDENSE MASSIVE GALAXIES IN WINGS LOCAL CLUSTERS (2009, background): “…investigation here are thought not to be extreme (see,e.g. Bezanson et al. 2009; Hopkins et al. 2009a) anyway larger (by a factor of∼ 2) than the most distant z≥ 2 and massive M∗ ≥ 1011M⊙ galaxies recently discovered (see,e.g.Buitrago et al. 2008; van Dokkum et al. 2008; Damjanov et al. 2009).”
THE SCUBA-2 COSMOLOGY LEGACY SURVEY: ALMA RESOLVES THE REST-FRAME FAR-INFRARED EMISSION OF SUB-MILLIMETER GALAXIES (2014, background): “…the population of quiescent galaxies at redshift z = 1–3 is that they are extremely compact, with half-light sizes of ∼ 1 kpc 19 (e.g. Daddi et al. 2005; Zirm et al. 2007; Toft et al. 2007; Buitrago et al. 2008; van Dokkum et al. 2008; Newman et al. 2012; Patel et al. 2013; Krogager et al. 2013).”
The Evolution of Galaxy Structure Over Cosmic Time (2014, methodology): “…as major mergers are not able to produce the observation of increasing size 28 Christopher J. Conselice The average sizes of massive galaxies selected with M∗ > 1011 M⊙ as imaged in the POWIR (Conselice et al. 2007) z < 2 data and GNS > 1.5 images (Buitrago et al. 2008; Conselice et al. 2011).”
Compact high-redshift galaxies are the cores of the most massive present-day spheroids (2009, background): “…high-redshift spheroids may have significantly smaller effective radii than low-redshift analogues of the same mass (e.g. Daddi et al. 2005; Trujillo et al. 2006a, 2007; Toft et al. 2007; van Dokkum et al. 2008; Franx et al. 2008; van der Wel et al. 2008; Cimatti et al. 2008; Buitrago et al. 2008).”
ON SIZES, KINEMATICS, M/L GRADIENTS, AND LIGHT PROFILES OF MASSIVE COMPACT GALAXIES AT z ∼ 2 (2010, background): “…observational studies find galaxies, and especially quiescent galaxies, to grow significantly in size as time progresses (e.g., Trujillo et al. 2006; Toft et al. 2007; Zirm et al. 2007; van Dokkum et al. 2008; Cimatti et al. 2008; van der Wel et al. 2008; Franx et al. 2008; Buitrago et al. 2008).”