zCOSMOS – 10k-bright spectroscopic sample - The bimodality in the galaxy stellar mass function: exploring its evolution with redshift

By L. Pozzetti, M. Bolzonella, E. Zucca, G. Zamorani, S. Lilly, A. Renzini, Michele Moresco, M. Mignoli, P. Cassata, L. Tasca and 49 more. 2009

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We present the Galaxy Stellar Mass Function (GSMF) up to z~1 from the zCOSMOS-bright 10k spectroscopic sample. We investigate the total MF and the contribution of ETGs and LTGs, defined by broad-band SED, morphology, spectral properties or star formation activities. We unveil a galaxy bimodality in the global MF, at least up to the z~0.55, better represented by 2 Schechter functions dominated by ETGs and LTGs, respectively. For the global population we confirm that low-mass galaxies number density increases later and faster than for massive galaxies. We find that the MF evolution at intermediate-low Mstar (logM<10.6) is mostly explained by a growth in stellar mass driven by smooth and decreasing SFHs. The low/negligible evolution at higher Mstar sets a limit of 30-15%, decreasing with redshift, to the fraction of major merging. We find that ETGs increase in number density with cosmic time faster for decreasing Mstar, with a median "building redshift" increasing with mass, in contrast with hierarchical model predictions. For LTGs we find that the number density of blue or spiral galaxies remains almost constant with cosmic time from z~1. Instead, the most extreme population of active star forming galaxies is rapidly decreasing in number density. We suggest, firstly, a transformation from blue active spiral galaxies of intermediate mass into blue quiescent and successively (1-2 Gyr after) into red passive types. The complete morphological transformation into red spheroidal galaxies, required longer time-scales or follows after 1-2 Gyr. A continuous replacement of blue galaxies is expected by low-mass active spirals growing in stellar mass. We estimate that on average ~25% of blue galaxies is transforming into red per Gyr for logM<11. We expect a negligible evolution of the global Galaxy Baryonic MF. ABRIDGED

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/59aa39ed719cea7b08770e1317ee7641cd6fc276

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Citations in the corpus

MASS AND ENVIRONMENT AS DRIVERS OF GALAXY EVOLUTION. II. THE QUENCHING OF SATELLITE GALAXIES AS THE ORIGIN OF ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS (2011, background): “M* of the Schechter function) does not change significantly since z ~ 2 (e.g. Bell et al. 2007; Pozzetti et al. 2010; Ilbert et al. 2010), despite the large, two order of magnitude, increase in the stellar masses of star-forming galaxies that are not quenched, requires that the mass-quenching must…”
NEWLY QUENCHED GALAXIES AS THE CAUSE FOR THE APPARENT EVOLUTION IN AVERAGE SIZE OF THE POPULATION (2013, background): “…increase since z = 1 of the number density of Q-ETGs with masses integrated above 1011M contrasts the well-known constancy in number density of the most massive Q-ETGs, with masses of order 2−4×1011M (see also Cimatti et al. 2006; Scarlata et al. 2007b; Pozzetti et al. 2010; Ilbert et al. 2013).”
Simulations of the galaxy population constrained by observations from z = 3 to the present day: implications for galactic winds and the fate of their ejecta (2012, background): “…(Pérez-González et al. 2008), Marchesini et al. (2009), Spitzer-Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS; Ilbert et al. 2010), NOAO Extremely Wide-Field Infrared Imager (NEWFIRM; Marchesini et al. 2010), zCOSMOS (Pozzetti et al. 2010) and COSMOS (Domı́nguez Sánchez et al. 2011) at higher redshift.”
PRIMUS: CONSTRAINTS ON STAR FORMATION QUENCHING AND GALAXY MERGING, AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE STELLAR MASS FUNCTION FROM z = 0–1 (2013, methodology): “We empirically determine the stellar mass completeness limits of our sample following Pozzetti et al. (2010).”
Mass assembly in quiescent and star-forming galaxies since z ≃ 4 from UltraVISTA (2013, methodology): “We follow a procedure similar to Pozzetti et al. (2010) to define the stellar mass completeness limit.”
The Herschel* PEP/HerMES luminosity function - I. Probing the evolution of PACS selected Galaxies to z ≃ 4 (2013, background): “Despite the abundance of information available in the literature about the stellar mass function (MF; Fontana et al. 2004; Pozzetti et al. 2010; Ilbert et al. 2010; Dominguez- c© 2012 RAS, MNRAS 000, 2–29 Sanchez et al. 2011), very little is known about the corresponding total IR LFs and…”
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the galaxy stellar mass function at z < 0.06 (2011, methodology): “As in BGD08 and Pozzetti et al. (2010), we find that the double Schechter function provides a good fit to the data for M > 108M⊙ (Fig.”
The COSMOS2015 galaxy stellar mass function . Thirteen billion years of stellar mass assembly in ten snapshots (2017, methodology): “To estimate the stellar-mass completeness (Mlim) as a function of redshift, we apply the technique introduced by Pozzetti et al. (2010).”
A TURNOVER IN THE GALAXY MAIN SEQUENCE OF STAR FORMATION AT M* ∼ 1010 M☉ FOR REDSHIFTS z < 1.3 (2015, background): “…which measure the brightness and mass distribution of galaxies at various lookback times, show a steep, exponential decline at high stellar masses and high luminosities while retaining a remarkably consistent shape at all redshifts (e.g. Bell et al. 2003; Pozzetti et al. 2010; Ilbert et al. 2013).”
Stellar masses of SDSS-III/BOSS galaxies at z ∼ 0.5 and constraints to galaxy formation models (2012, methodology): “We find that our light-coned mass function compares well with the mass function based on thezCOSMOS survey(Pozzetti et al. 2010).”
THE CONTRIBUTION OF STARBURSTS AND NORMAL GALAXIES TO INFRARED LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS AT z < 2 (2012, background): “…general consensus in the literature is that, for SFGs, the low-mass end slope α and characteristic mass M∗ change little at 0<z< 2, while the normalization Φ∗ is roughly constant out to z∼ 1, followed by a ∼3-fold drop over 1<z< 2 (e.g., Bell et al. 2007, Pozzetti et al. 2010, Brammer et al. 2011).”
Constraining the galaxy–halo connection over the last 13.3 Gyr: star formation histories, galaxy mergers and structural properties (2017, background): “As the galaxy population evolves, massive galaxies tend to pile up around M∗ ∼ 3× 1010M due to the increasing number of massive quenched galaxies at lower redshifts (see e.g., Bundy et al. 2006; Faber et al. 2007; Peng et al. 2010; Pozzetti et al. 2010; Muzzin et al. 2013).”
THE COSMOS2015 CATALOG: EXPLORING THE 1 < z < 6 UNIVERSE WITH HALF A MILLION GALAXIES (2016, background): “Stellar mass Completeness We empirically estimate the stellar mass completeness (Pozzetti et al. 2010; Ilbert et al. 2013; Moustakas et al. 2013; Davidzon et al. 2013).”