The Munich Near-Infrared Cluster Survey (MUNICS). VI. The Stellar Masses of K-Band-selected Field Galaxies to z ~ 1.2

By N. Drory, R. Bender, G. Feulner, U. Hopp, C. Maraston, J. Snigula, G. Austin, U. Muenchen, Germany, Max-Planck-Institut fuer extraterrestrische Physik and 1 more. 2004

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We present a measurement of the evolution of the stellar mass function in four redshift bins at 0.4 < z < 1.2, using a sample of more than 5000 K-selected galaxies drawn from the MUNICS (Munich Near-Infrared Cluster Survey) data set. Our data cover the stellar mass range 1010 h-2 M☉ ≤ M ≤ 1012 h-2 M☉. We derive K-band mass-to-light ratios by fitting a grid of composite stellar population models of varying star formation history, age, and dust extinction to BVRIJK photometry. We discuss the evolution of the average mass-to-light ratio as a function of galaxy stellar mass in the K and B bands. We compare our stellar mass function at z > 0 to estimates obtained similarly at z = 0. We find that the mass-to-light ratios in the K band decline with redshift. This decline is similar for all stellar masses above 1010 h-2 M☉. Lower mass galaxies have lower mass-to-light ratios at all redshifts. The stellar mass function evolves significantly to z = 1.2. The total normalization decreases by a factor of ~2, the characteristic mass (the knee) shifts toward lower masses, and the bright end therefore steepens with redshift. The amount of number density evolution is a strong function of stellar mass, with more massive systems showing faster evolution than less massive systems. We discuss the total stellar mass density of the universe and compare our results to the values from the literature at both lower and higher redshifts. We find that the stellar mass density at z ~ 1 is roughly 50% of the local value. Our results imply that the mass assembly of galaxies continues well after z ~ 1. Our data favor a scenario in which the growth of the most massive galaxies is dominated by accretion and merging rather than star formation, which plays a larger role in the growth of less massive systems.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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Formation of Early-Type Galaxies from Cosmological Initial Conditions (2005, background): “0, in addition to a fading population of blue galaxies and mergers (Bell et al. 2004; Drory et al. 2004; Conselice et al. 2005; Faber et al. 2005).”
The K20 survey. VI. The distribution of the stellar masses in galaxies up to z 2 (2004, result): “In addition, we note that also the GSMFs recently obtained with the wider MUNICS survey (Drory et al. 2004) result to be in excellent agreement with our, in the range where they overlap.”
Can the faint submillimetre galaxies be explained in the Λ cold dark matter model (2005, methodology): “…recently, Granato et al. (2004) have developed a coupled model for the evolution of galactic spheroids and quasistellar objects (QSOs), which successfully reproduces the counts of SMGs and the evolution of the K-band luminosity function with redshift (e.g. Pozzetti et al. 2003; Drory et al. 2004).”
The Mass Assembly Histories of Galaxies of Various Morphologies in the GOODS Fields (2005, background): “As we discuss in §5.2, the observed stellar mass function, which is not affected by incompleteness at high mass in our survey, shows little evolution from z ∼ 1 to z = 0 in agreement with previous work (e.g. Drory et al. 2004; Fontana et al. 2004; Bell et al. 2004).”
Cosmological simulations of black hole growth: AGN luminosities and downsizing (2013, result): “…for the 500 Mpc/hr run and green dashed lines for the 68 Mpc/uhr run) are compared with observational data from different studies (black symbols: Drory et al. 2004; Bundy et al. 2005; Fontana et al. 2006; Marchesini et al. 2007; Pérez-González et al. 2008; Ilbert et al. 2010; blue dashed…”
NEW CONSTRAINTS ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE STELLAR-TO-DARK MATTER CONNECTION: A COMBINED ANALYSIS OF GALAXY–GALAXY LENSING, CLUSTERING, AND STELLAR MASS FUNCTIONS FROM z = 0.2 to z = 1 (2011, methodology): “…by abundance matching to the SDSS SMF of Panter et al. (2007) at low redshift and to mass functions from the MUNICS survey (detection limit K ∼19.5, area 0.28 deg2; Drory et al. 2004) and the GOODS-MUSIC sample (detection limit K ∼ 23.5, area 143.2 arcmin2; Fontana et al. 2006) at high redshift.”
The stellar masses of 25 000 galaxies at 0.2 ≤ z ≤ 1.0 estimated by the COMBO-17 survey (2006, background): “Stellar masses estimated in these ways are consistent at the ∼ 0.1 dex level (e.g., Bell et al. 2003; Drory et al. 2004b; Salim et al. 2005) and correlate strongly with dynamically-measured masses (e.g., Bell & de Jong 2001; Drory et al. 2004a; van der Wel et al. 2005; Cappellari et al. 2005).”
Metallicity evolution, metallicity gradients, and gas fractions at z ~ 3.4 (2013, methodology): “The galaxy templates and best fitting technique are the same as those used in previous papers (Grazian et al. 2006, 2007), and similar to those adopted by other groups in the literature (e.g. Dickinson et al. 2003; Drory et al. 2004; Pozzetti et al. 2007).”
Star Formation and the Growth of Stellar Mass (2007, background): “…Flores et al. 1999; Haarsma et al. 2000; Hopkins 2004; Le Floc’h et al. 2005) and the buildup of stellar mass (e.g., Brinchmann& Ellis 2000; Cole et al. 2001; Dickinson et al. 2003; Rudnick et al. 2003, 2006; Fontana et al. 2004, 2006; Drory et al. 2004, 2005; Borch et al. 2006) to be estimated.”
The morgana model for the rise of galaxies and active nuclei (2006, result): “…is related to the cosmic star formation rate (it is simply its integral in time), it is compared with a completely different set of data (Brinchmann & Ellis 2000; Cole et al. 2001; Cohen 2002; Dickinson et al. 2003; Fontana et al. 2003; Drory et al. 2004; Fontana et al. 2004; Gwyn & Hartwick 2005).”
An Ultraviolet-to-Radio Broadband Spectral Atlas of Nearby Galaxies (2006, background): “Drory et al. (2004) and Feulner et al. (2005), for example, have utilized the specific star formation rate to explore – 16 – the role of star formation in the growth of stellar mass over cosmic timescales.”
The K20 survey. VII. The spectroscopic catalogue: spectral properties and evolution of the galaxy population ⋆, ⋆⋆ (2005, background): “…stringent comparisons with models of galaxy formation (e.g. Cimatti et al. 2002b; Somerville et al. 2004), and to place the first constraints on the evolution of the stellar mass density in the Universe (e.g. Dickinson et al. 2003; Drory et al. 2004; Fontana et al. 2004; Glazebrook et al. 2004).”
Strong size evolution of the most massive galaxies since z~2 (2007, background): “This decline is moderate sincez∼1 and much stronger at even higher redshifts (Daddi, Cimatti & Renzini 2000; Pozzetti et al. 2003; Bell et al. 2004; Drory et al. 2004, 2005; Daddi et al. 2005; Saracco et al. 2005; Faber et al. 2005; Pozzetti et al. 2007).”
The galaxy stellar mass function at 3.5 ≤z ≤ 7.5 in the CANDELS/UDS, GOODS-South, and HUDF fields (2015, result): “…used in previous studies (Fontana et al. 2004, 2006; Grazian et al. 2006; Maiolino et al. 2008; and Santini et al. 2012a), and similar to those adopted by other groups in the literature (e.g. Dickinson et al. 2003; Drory et al. 2004; Ilbert et al. 2013; Muzzin et al. 2013; Tomczak et al. 2014).”
Cosmic evolution of submillimeter galaxies and their contribution to stellar mass assembly (2009, result): “Specifically, the median (0.68M⊙ L −1 ⊙ ) is similar to the values for M∗ > 10 11M⊙ galaxies (Drory et al., 2004, their Table 1) and to simulated massive galaxies at z ∼ 1 (Courty et al., 2007, their Figure 4).”
ON STAR FORMATION RATES AND STAR FORMATION HISTORIES OF GALAXIES OUT TO z ∼ 3 (2011, background): “…et al. 2006; Borch et al. 2006; Pozzetti et al. 2007; Vergani et al. 2008, and out to z ∼ 5 Dickinson et al. 2003; Fontana et al. 2003, 2004, 2006; Drory et al. 2004, 2005; Elsner et al. 2008; PérezGonzález et al. 2008; Marchesini et al. 2009), or to 1 Max-Planck-Institut für…”
Fueling Low-Level AGN Activity through Stochastic Accretion of Cold Gas (2006, background): “…de Lapparent et al. 2004; Giallongo et al. 2005; Faber et al. 2005), measured evolution in the cumulative mass function (de Propris et al. 1999; Drory et al. 2004, 2005), and evolution in black hole mass functions from spheroid luminosity functions and integration of the continuity equations…”