Evolved Galaxies at z > 1.5 from the Gemini Deep Deep Survey: The Formation Epoch of Massive Stellar Systems

By P. McCarthy, D. Le Borgne, D. Crampton, Hsiao-Wen Chen, R. Abraham, Karl Glazebrook, S. Savaglio, R. Carlberg, R. Marzke, K. Roth and 4 more. 2004

164 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present spectroscopic evidence from the Gemini Deep Deep Survey for a significant population of color-selected red galaxies at 1.3 < z < 2.2 whose integrated light is dominated by evolved stars. Unlike radio-selected objects, the z > 1.5 old galaxies have a sky density greater than 0.1 arcmin-2. Conservative age estimates for 20 galaxies with z > 1.3, ⟨z⟩ = 1.49, give a median age of 1.2 Gyr and ⟨zf⟩ = 2.4. One-quarter of the galaxies have inferred zf > 4. Models restricted to [Fe/H] ≤ 0 give median ages and zf of 2.3 Gyr and 3.3, respectively. These galaxies are among the most massive and contribute ~50% of the stellar mass density at 1 < z < 2. The derived ages and most probable star formation histories suggest a high star formation rate (~300-500 M☉ yr-1) phase in the progenitor population. We argue that most of the red galaxies are not descendants of the typical z ~ 3 Lyman break galaxies. Galaxies associated with luminous submillimeter sources have the requisite star formation rates to be the progenitor population. Our results point toward early and rapid formation for a significant fraction of present-day massive galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5ea3dda139924d4a135cc297fd93d2ffb1576b90

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

In Instrumentation

Citations in the corpus

Stellar Population Diagnostics of Elliptical Galaxy Formation (2006, methodology): “Further identifications of very high redshift ETGs used this UV feature: Mc- Carthy et al. (2004) reported the discovery of 20 ETGs with 1.3<∼z<∼2.15 and K < 20 as part of the Gemini Deep Deep Survey (GDDS) (including the 5 galaxies from Glazebrook et al. 2004).”
The 2df SDSS LRG and QSO survey: evolution of the luminosity function of luminous red galaxies to z= 0.6 (2006, background): “…over a range of redshifts (Bernardi et al. 1998; Kuntschner & Davies 1998; Trager et al. 2000; Hogg et al. 2002; Bernardi et al. 2003a, 2003b,c,d; Baldry et al. 2004; Cimatti et al. 2004; Glazebrook et al. 2004; McCarthy et al. 2004; Papovich et al. 2005; Thomas et al. 2005; Bernardi et al. 2006).”
TWO BRIGHT SUBMILLIMETER GALAXIES IN A z = 4.05 PROTOCLUSTER IN GOODS-NORTH, AND ACCURATE RADIO-INFRARED PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS (2008, unknown): “On the other hand, the existence of a population of passive systems atz∼ 1.5− 2.5 (Spinrad et al. 1997; Cimatti et al. 2004; McCarthy et al. 2004; Daddi et al. 2005a; Saracco et al. 2005; Kriek et al. 2008) with large masses (0.5−5×1011M⊙), a space density of order of 10−4 Mpc−3 (∼ 10−30% of the…”
Spitzer View on the Evolution of Star-forming Galaxies from z = 0 to z ~ 3 (2005, result): “This scenario would also be supported by the results about the population of high-mass galaxies at z ¼ 1 3, which require ULIRGs at z > 3 (see, e.g., McCarthy et al. 2004; Labbe et al. 2005).”
IRAC Mid-Infrared Imaging of the Hubble Deep Field-South: Star Formation Histories and Stellar Masses of Red Galaxies at z > 2 (2005, unknown): “Previous authors found such galaxies atz p 1–2 (e.g., Cimatti et al. 2004; McCarthy et al. 2004).”
Multiwavelength Study of Massive Galaxies at z ~ 2. II. Widespread Compton-thick Active Galactic Nuclei and the Concurrent Growth of Black Holes and Bulges (2007, background): “Passively evolving elliptical galaxies are now known to be present in significant numbers at least up to z ∼ 2.5 (Cimatti et al. 2004; McCarthy et al. 2004; Daddi et al. 2005a).”
Semi-empirical analysis of Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies – II. The bimodality of the galaxy population revisited (2005, result): “Recently, many observational results have supported this idea by suggesting that the most luminous galaxies formed the bulk of their stars in the first ∼3 Gyr of cosmic history (Kodama et al. 2004; McCarthy et al. 2004; Juneau et al. 2005, and others).”
THE EVOLVING RELATIONS BETWEEN SIZE, MASS, SURFACE DENSITY, AND STAR FORMATION IN 3 × 104 GALAXIES SINCE z = 2 (2009, background): “…the big bang, and that massive red galaxies constitute a significant fraction of (or possibly even dominate) the stellar mass density atz∼ 2 (e.g. McCarthy et al. 2004; Labbé et al. 2005; Daddi et al. 2005; Kriek et al. 2006, 2008a; Rudnick et al. 2006; Marchesini et al. 2007; Stutz et al.…”
Virial Masses and the Baryon Fraction in Galaxies (2005, background): “Such a scenario is, at least qualitatively, in agreement with recent estimates of the star formation rates of high redshift galaxies (e.g., McCarthy et al. 2004; Juneau et al. 2005).”
THE EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY OF LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES BETWEEN REDSHIFT 4 AND 6: OBSERVING SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS OF MASSIVE GALAXIES IN FORMATION (2009, background): “…dust-enshrouded “bursts” of star formation seen in the sub-mm are largely responsible for assembling massive galaxies by z ≃ 2 − 3 (Cimatti et al. 2004; McCarthy et al. 2004), it is interesting to extend our estimates of the number density of massive LBGs down to z ≃ 2 in order to compute the…”
RED NUGGETS AT z ∼ 1.5: COMPACT PASSIVE GALAXIES AND THE FORMATION OF THE KORMENDY RELATION (2008, background): “Ages of the GDDS galaxies are taken from Paper IV, and it is worthwhile to consider whether we might have significantly overestimated the ages of the galaxies in that paper.”
The LABOCA survey of the Extended Chandra Deep Field South: A photometric redshift survey of submillimetre galaxies (2010, background): “We estimate the volume density of z > 3 SMGs from Section 5.3 as 2.8 × 10−6 Mpc−3.”
Spitzer Observations of Massive, Red Galaxies at High Redshift (2005, background): “Some early-type galaxies appear as soon as z 1:5 2 (Dunlop et al. 1996; Spinrad et al. 1997; McCarthy et al. 2004; Daddi et al. 2005a).”
Setting the Stage for Cosmic Chronometers. II. Impact of Stellar Population Synthesis Models Systematics and Full Covariance Matrix (2020, methodology): “…for each model combination, we consider a range zf = [1.5 − 5], in agreement with observational constraints (Franx et al. 2003; Cimatti et al. 2004; McCarthy et al. 2004; Daddi et al. 2005; Treu et al. 2005; Renzini 2006; Pozzetti et al. 2010; Thomas et al. 2010; McDermid et al. 2015; Carnall et…”
Spectroscopic Identification of a Protocluster at z = 2.300: Environmental Dependence of Galaxy Properties at High Redshift (2005, background): “…and spectroscopic surveys of galaxies at high redshifts (z <∼ 2) that are bright and/or red at rest-frame optical wavelengths (e.g., Franx et al. 2003; Abraham et al. 2004; Cimatti et al. 2004; McCarthy et al. 2004), as might be expected for passively evolving galaxies at high redshifts.”
Passively Evolving Early-Type Galaxies at 1.4 ≲ z ≲ 2.5 in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (2005, unknown): “The typical shape of this region was first used by Spinrad et al. (1997) to measure the redshift of the z ¼ 1:55 passive galaxy and also more recently by Cimatti et al. (2004) and McCarthy et al. (2004).”