The Luminosity, Stellar Mass, and Number Density Evolution of Field Galaxies of Known Morphology from z = 0.5 to 3

By Christopher J. Conselice, J. A. Blackburne, C. Papovich. 2004

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The evolution of rest-frame B-band luminosities, stellar masses, and number densities of field galaxies in the Hubble Deep Fields North and South are studied as a function of rest-frame B-band morphological type out to redshift z ~ 3 using a sample of 1231 I < 27 galaxies with spectroscopic and photometric redshifts. We find that the comoving and relative number densities of ellipticals and spirals decline rapidly at z > 1, although examples of both types exist at z > 2. The number and number fraction of peculiar galaxies consistent with undergoing major mergers rise dramatically and consistently at redshifts z > 2. Through simulations we argue that this change is robust at the 4 σ level against morphological K-corrections and redshift effects. We also trace the evolution of rest-frame B-band luminosity density as a function of morphology out to z ~ 3, finding that the luminosity density is steadily dominated by peculiars at z > 1.5 with a peak fraction of 60%-90% at z ~ 3. By z ~ 0.5, B-band luminosity fractions are similar to their local values. At z ~ 1 the B-band luminosity densities of ellipticals and spirals are similar, with a combined contribution of ~90% of the total luminosity at z < 1. The stellar mass density follows a trend similar to that of the luminosity density, with some important exceptions. At high redshifts, z > 2, 60%-80% of stellar mass appears attached to peculiars, while at z < 1, 80%-95% of stellar mass is attached to ellipticals and spirals. The total integrated stellar mass density of peculiars slightly declines at lower redshift, suggesting that these systems evolve into normal galaxies. In contrast to the luminosity density, the stellar mass density of ellipticals is greater than spirals at z < 1, and the stellar masses of both types grow together at z < 1, while number densities remain constant. From a structural analysis of these galaxies we conclude that galaxy formation at z > 2 is dominated by major merging, while at z < 1 the dominate modes are either minor mergers or quiescent star formation produced by gas infall. Finally, at z ~ 1.5 the comoving luminosity, mass, and number densities of spirals, ellipticals, and peculiars are nearly equal, suggesting that this is the "equilibrium" point in galaxy evolution and an important phase transition in the universe's history.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5cc780be1b1fd103b7ed360f7ab3327e5dd95021

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Citations in the corpus

The structures of distant galaxies – I. Galaxy structures and the merger rate to z∼ 3 in the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (2007, methodology): “However, stellar masses measured through our technique are roughly the expected factor of 5-10 smaller than dynamical masses at z ∼ 1 using a sample of disk galaxies (Conselice et al. 2005b), demonstrating their inherent reliability.”
HISTORY OF GALAXY INTERACTIONS AND THEIR IMPACT ON STAR FORMATION OVER THE LAST 7 Gyr FROM GEMS (2009, methodology): “Visual tests that verify how well the CAS criterion (A > 0.35 and A > S) works at intermediate redshifts have been performed using spot checks and small-to-moderate samples (e.g., Mobasher et al 2004; Conselice 2003; Conselice et al. 2003; Conselice et al. 2005).”
The Assembly of Diversity in the Morphologies and Stellar Populations of High-Redshift Galaxies (2005, background): “Thus, the emergence of galaxies with large internal color dispersion signifies great diversity in their stellar content, and we interpret this as evidence for a decline in the major-merger rate in galaxies at zP 1:5 (see also van den Bergh 2002; Conselice et al. 2005).”
BULGE AND CLUMP EVOLUTION IN HUBBLE ULTRA DEEP FIELD CLUMP CLUSTERS, CHAINS AND SPIRAL GALAXIES (2008, background): “…more massive at higher redshifts, partly because of bandshifting of UV-bright regions into the optical bands, and partly because of an increased importance of interactions in the young universe (e.g., Abraham et al. 1996a, 1996b; Conselice et al. 2005; Elmegreen & Elmegreen 2005; Lotz et al. 2006).”
Galaxy merger morphologies and time-scales from simulations of equal-mass gas-rich disc mergers (2008, background): “Conselice et al. (2005) find that decreased spatial resolution and surface brightness dimming at z > 0.5 can lower the measured A in irregular galaxies by 0.05-0.15 (also Shi 2008).”
CONSTRAINTS ON THE ASSEMBLY AND DYNAMICS OF GALAXIES. I. DETAILED REST-FRAME OPTICAL MORPHOLOGIES ON KILOPARSEC SCALE OF z ∼ 2 STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2010, background): “Qualitatively, multiple bright compact components can be interpreted as distinct interacting/merging units, asymmetries in the more diffuse emission or distorted isophotes on large scales can be attributed to ti al features (e.g. Lotz et al. 2004; Conselice et al. 2005).”
Greatly Enhanced Merger Rates of Compact-object Binaries in Non-spherical Nuclear Star Clusters (2017, methodology): “In order to estimate a rate per volume we use a number density of galaxies of ≈ 0.02 Mpc−3 (e.g., Conselice et al. 2005; Kopparapu et al. 2008).”
The Physical Nature of Rest-UV Galaxy Morphology during the Peak Epoch of Galaxy Formation (2006, unknown): “At high redshifts from z ∼ 2−3 however the morphologies of typical galaxies are highly irregular (Abraham et al. 1996, Kajisawa & Yamada 2001, Conselice et al. 2005), frequently composed of multiple spatially separated components, and appear to bear little similarity to the local Hubble-type…”
The Stellar Mass Assembly of Galaxies from z = 0 to z = 4: Analysis of a Sample Selected in the Rest-Frame Near-Infrared with Spitzer (2007, result): “It is interesting to notice that the faint-end slope derived by Drory et al. (2005) at z>1.5 is significantly larger than that found by other authors (Fontana et al. 2004; Conselice et al. 2005).”
Black Hole Mergers in Galactic Nuclei Induced by the Eccentric Kozai–Lidov Effect (2017, methodology): “We adopt ng = 0.02Mpc−3 (Conselice et al. 2005) and fMBH = 0.5 following (Antonini et al. 2015b,a).”
Dry Mergers in GEMS: The Dynamical Evolution of Massive Early-Type Galaxies (2005, unknown): “The majority of these red-sequence galaxies are morphologically early type out to at least z 0:7 (Bell et al. 2004a); indeed, recent works have confirmed a growth in the total stellar mass in morphologically early-type galaxies from z 1 to the present day (Cross et al. 2004; Conselice et al. 2005).”
Resolved Galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: Star Formation in Disks at High Redshift (2007, background): “After this time, mergers continued to form smaller ellipticals (e.g., Bundy et al. 2005), and the relatively isolated spirals survived, growing primarily by dark matter plus gas accretion and minor mergers (e.g., Conselice et al. 2005b; Brook et al. 2006).”
A DIVERSITY OF PROGENITORS AND HISTORIES FOR ISOLATED SPIRAL GALAXIES (2012, background): “Most surveys conclude that the Hubble sequence disappears at z > 1.5–2, and most galaxies at that redshift seem to be irregular or compact (Daddi et al. 2004; Conselice et al. 2005; Papovich et al. 2005).”
The Mass Assembly Histories of Galaxies of Various Morphologies in the GOODS Fields (2005, methodology): “Indeed, Conselice et al. (2005) compare visual classifications similar to those presented here in WFPC I and NICMOS H-band for 54 galaxies in HDF-N with z < 1 and find that only 8 disagree.”
The Evolution of Galaxy Structure Over Cosmic Time (2014, methodology): “A deeper analysis of this showed that using the rest-frame optical structures of galaxies, the Hubble sequence was nearly completely absent at z > 2, and only at z ∼ 1.5 did spirals and ellipticals become as common as peculiar galaxies (Conselice et al. 2005; Buitrago et al. 2013; Figure 7).”
Evidence for strong dynamical evolution in disc galaxies through the last 11 Gyr. GHASP VIII – a local reference sample of rotating disc galaxies for high‐redshift studies (2009, background): “The nature of the massive clumps observed in high redshift galaxies is well established from imaging (Conselice et al. 2005; Elmegreen & Elmegreen 2005).”
Black hole growth through hierarchical black hole mergers in dense star clusters: implications for gravitational wave detections (2018, unknown): “We set dNgx/dV = 0.01Mpc−3 (Conselice et al. 2005) and assume an order of unity occupation fraction of NCs in galaxies, (Turner et al. 2012; Georgiev & Böker 2014).”
Stellar Populations in 10 Clump-Cluster Galaxies of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (2005, background): “Conselice et al. (2005) found that peculiar galaxies dominate at z > 2.”
The Observer's Guide to the Gamma-Ray Burst-Supernova Connection (2016, background): “Over the years, evidence mounted that LGRBs appeared to prefer lowluminosity, low-mass, blue, star-forming galaxies, that have higher specific star-formation rates (SFRs) than the typical field galaxy [213, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228].”