What Do We Learn from IRAC Observations of Galaxies at 2 < z < 3.5?

By S. Wuyts, I. Labbé, M. Franx, G. Rudnick, P. V. van Dokkum, G. Fazio, N. F. Förster Schreiber, Jiasheng Huang, A. Moorwood, Hans-Walter Rix and 2 more. 2006

288 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We analyze very deep HST, VLT, and Spitzer photometry of galaxies at 2 < z < 3.5 in the Hubble Deep Field-South. The sample is selected from the deepest public K-band imaging currently available. We show that the rest-frame U - V versus V - J color-color diagram is a powerful diagnostic of the stellar populations of distant galaxies. Galaxies with red rest-frame U - V colors are generally red in rest-frame V - J as well. However, at a given U - V color a range in V - J colors exists, and we show that this allows us to distinguish young, dusty galaxies from old, passively evolving galaxies. We quantify the effects of IRAC photometry on estimates of masses, ages, and the dust content of z > 2 galaxies. The estimated distributions of these properties do not change significantly when IRAC data are added to the UBVIJHK photometry. However, for individual galaxies the addition of IRAC can improve the constraints on the stellar populations, especially for red galaxies: uncertainties in stellar mass decrease by a factor of 2.7 for red [(U − V)rest > 1] galaxies, but only by a factor of 1.3 for blue [(U − V)rest < 1] galaxies. We find a similar color dependence of the improvement for estimates of age and dust extinction. In addition, the improvement from adding IRAC depends on the availability of full NIR JHK coverage; if only K band were available, the mass uncertainties of blue galaxies would decrease by a more substantial factor of 1.9. Finally, we find that a trend of galaxy color with stellar mass is already present at z > 2. The most massive galaxies at high redshift have red rest-frame U - V colors compared to lower mass galaxies, even when allowing for complex star formation histories.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/50db617112f5fce12ef671d6a6c16629bd145e75

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

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

In Instrumentation

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

Citations in the corpus

• THE STAR FORMATION MASS SEQUENCE OUT TO z = 2.5 (2012, background): “With accurate rest-frame colors, it is possible to isolate “clean” samples of star-forming and quiescent galaxies using two rest-frame colors out to high redshifts (Labbé et al. 2005; Wuyts et al. 2007; Williams et al. 2009; Ilbert et al. 2009; Brammer et al. 2011; Whitaker et al. 2011).”
• WHAT TURNS GALAXIES OFF? THE DIFFERENT MORPHOLOGIES OF STAR-FORMING AND QUIESCENT GALAXIES SINCE z ∼ 2 FROM CANDELS (2011, background): “Galaxies are color-coded by star formation activity (§3.1): red symbols show galaxies classified as quiescent usingboth 24µm information andU −V/V − J colors, and blue symbols show the remaining population.”
• Discriminating Between the Physical Processes that Drive Spheroid Size Evolution (2009, methodology): “…something more than just the known differences between, for example, the Maraston et al. (2006) and Bruzual & Charlot (2003) stellar population models – applied to the observed z = 2 systems with the best present data, these give only a factor of ∼1.4 difference in stellar mass (Wuyts et al. 2007).”
• A PUBLIC Ks-SELECTED CATALOG IN THE COSMOS/UltraVISTA FIELD: PHOTOMETRY, PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS, AND STELLAR POPULATION PARAMETERS, (2013, methodology): “This reddening with decreasing redshift is precisely what is expected for a passively-evolving population of galaxies (e.g., Wuyts et al. 2007).”
• EVOLUTION OF GALAXY STELLAR MASS FUNCTIONS, MASS DENSITIES, AND MASS-TO-LIGHT RATIOS FROM z ∼ 7 TO z ∼ 4 (2010, methodology): “To obtain 6 Slightly modified, Bouwens et al. 2010, in prep. reliable IRAC fluxes we use the deblending method of Labbé et al. (2006, see also González et al. 2010; Labbé et al. 2010b,a; Wuyts et al. 2007; de Santis et al. 2007).”
• THE MULTIWAVELENGTH SURVEY BY YALE–CHILE (MUSYC): DEEP MEDIUM-BAND OPTICAL IMAGING AND HIGH-QUALITY 32-BAND PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS IN THE ECDF-S (2010, background): “The rest-frame V − J color can distinguish between these two populations because dust-free galaxies are blue in V-J color, while the dust-obscured galaxies are still red (Labbé et al. 2005; Wuyts et al. 2007).”
• THE GEMINI CLUSTER ASTROPHYSICS SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY (GCLASS): THE ROLE OF ENVIRONMENT AND SELF-REGULATION IN GALAXY EVOLUTION AT z ∼ 1 (2011, methodology): “At present it is unclear which of the available models provides a better description of highredshift galaxies (e.g., Wuyts et al. 2007; Muzzin et al. 2009a; Kriek et al. 2010), so we have chosen to use the BC03 models to provide continuity with previous studies.”
• STAR FORMATION RATES AND STELLAR MASSES OF z = 7–8 GALAXIES FROM IRAC OBSERVATIONS OF THE WFC3/IR EARLY RELEASE SCIENCE AND THE HUDF FIELDS (2009, methodology): “We convolve the templates to match the IRAC PSF, simultaneously fit them to the IRAC map leaving only the fluxes as free parameters, and subtract the best-fit models to the foreground sources (see Labbé et al. 2006; Wuyts et al. 2007; Gonzalez et al. 2009; de Santis et al. 2007).”
• DISSIPATION AND EXTRA LIGHT IN GALACTIC NUCLEI. IV. EVOLUTION IN THE SCALING RELATIONS OF SPHEROIDS (2008, background): “…see Kriek et al. 2006) and observed in even rest-frame optical wavelengths (let along rest-frame UV), the gradients inM∗/L introduce a bias towards smallerRe (there may also be some related, but weak, biases in these stellar population parameters and stellar masses, see e.g. Wuyts et al. 2007).”
• Compact high-redshift galaxies are the cores of the most massive present-day spheroids (2009, background): “This is estimated to be a possible factor of ∼1.2–1.4 overestimate of the high-redshift masses where high-quality optical photometry is available (Wuyts et al. 2007; Wuyts et al. 2009).”
• 3D-HST+CANDELS: THE EVOLUTION OF THE GALAXY SIZE–MASS DISTRIBUTION SINCE z = 3 (2014, unknown): “Following Wuyts et al. (2007) and Williams et al. (2009), we utilize rest-frame colors to distinguish between the two basic classes of galaxies: star-forming and quiescent galaxies.”
• GALAXY STRUCTURE AND MODE OF STAR FORMATION IN THE SFR–MASS PLANE FROM z ∼ 2.5 TO z ∼ 0.1 (2011, background): “For a detailed description of the dependence of estimated stellar masses on the assumed metallicity and attenuation law, we refer the reader to Wuyts et al. (2007).”
• THE RISE AND FALL OF PASSIVE DISK GALAXIES: MORPHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION ALONG THE RED SEQUENCE REVEALED BY COSMOS (2009, result): “…UV, optical, and near-IR colors, inspired 15 These are not included in our final error estimates. by recent work showing how this approach separates dusty star-formers from truly passive populations (e.g., Pozzetti & Mannucci 2000; Labbé et al. 2005; Wuyts et al. 2007; Williams et al. 2009).”
• A LARGE POPULATION OF MASSIVE COMPACT POST-STARBURST GALAXIES AT z > 1: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SIZE EVOLUTION AND QUENCHING MECHANISM OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES (2011, background): “…to isolate “true” samples of quiescent galaxies (removing dusty, star-forming galaxies that contaminate the red sequence) using two rest-frame colors out to high redshifts (Labbé et al. 2005; Wuyts et al. 2007; Williams et al. 2009; Ilbert et al. 2009; Brammer et al. 2011; Whitaker et al. 2011).”
• AN ULTRA-DEEP NEAR-INFRARED SPECTRUM OF A COMPACT QUIESCENT GALAXY AT z = 2.2 (2009, background): “The rest-frame NIR helps to constrain the stellar mass and age of the galaxy (e.g., Labbé et al. 2005; Shapley et al. 2005; Wuyts et al. 2007; Muzzin et al. 2009).”
• THE SFR–M* RELATION AND EMPIRICAL STAR FORMATION HISTORIES FROM ZFOURGE AT 0.5 < z < 4 (2015, methodology): “Therefore we use the Multi-Resolution Object PHotometry oN Galaxy Observations (MOPHONGO) code written by I. Labbé to extract deblended photometry in these farIR data (for a detailed discussion see Labbé et al. 2006; Wuyts et al. 2007).”
• THE STELLAR MASS DENSITY AND SPECIFIC STAR FORMATION RATE OF THE UNIVERSE AT z ∼ 7 (2009, methodology): “In estimating the rest-frame optical fluxes for our z ∼ 7 candidates from the IRAC, we will take advantage of the well-tested deblending process described by Labbé et al. (2006) (see also Wuyts et al. 2007) which enables us to estimate fluxes when there is moderate overlap with nearby sources.”
• FIREWORKS U38-to-24 μm Photometry of the GOODS Chandra Deep Field-South: Multiwavelength Catalog and Total Infrared Properties of Distant Ks-selected Galaxies (2008, background): “The UV slope and (V J )rest color are both sensitive tracers of dust attenuation (Meurer et al. 1999; Wuyts et al. 2007, respectively).”