The Stellar Mass Function of Galaxies to z ~ 5 in the FORS Deep and GOODS-South Fields

By N. Drory, Mara Salvato, A. Gabasch, R. Bender, U. Hopp, G. Feulner, M. Austin, Max-Planck-Institut fuer extraterrestrische Physik, U. Muenchen. 2004

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We present a measurement of the evolution of the stellar mass function (MF) of galaxies and the evolution of the total stellar mass density at 0 < z < 5, extending previous measurements to higher redshift and fainter magnitudes (and lower masses). We use deep multicolor data in the FORS Deep Field (FDF; I-selected reaching IAB ~ 26.8) and the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey-South (GOODS-S)/Chandra Deep Field-South region (K-selected reaching KAB ~ 25.4) to estimate stellar masses based on fits to composite stellar population models for 5557 and 3367 sources, respectively. The MF of objects from the K-selected GOODS-S sample is very similar to that of the I-selected FDF down to the completeness limit of the GOODS-S sample. Near-IR-selected surveys hence detect the more massive objects of the same principal population as do I-selected surveys. We find that the most massive galaxies harbor the oldest stellar populations at all redshifts. At low z, our MF follows the local MF very well, extending the local MF down by a decade to 108 M☉. Furthermore, the faint-end slope is consistent with the local value of α ~ 1.1 at least up to z ~ 1.5. Our MF also agrees very well with the Munich Near-Infrared Cluster Survey and K20 results at z ≲ 2. The MF seems to evolve in a regular way at least up to z ~ 2, with the normalization decreasing by 50% to z = 1 and by 70% to z = 2. Objects with M > 1010 M☉, which are the likely progenitors of today's L > L* galaxies, are found in much smaller numbers above z ~ 2. However, we note that massive galaxies with M > 1011 M☉ are present even to the largest redshift we probe. Beyond z ~ 2, the evolution of the MF becomes more rapid. We find that the total stellar mass density at z = 1 is 50% of the local value. At z = 2, 25% of the local mass density is assembled, and at z = 3 and z = 5, we find that at least 15% and 5% of the mass in stars is in place, respectively. The number density of galaxies with M > 1011 M☉ evolves very similarly to the evolution at lower masses. It decreases by 0.4 dex to z ~ 1, by 0.6 dex to z ~ 2, and by 1 dex to z ~ 4.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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What Do We Learn from IRAC Observations of Galaxies at 2 < z < 3.5? (2006, background): “In particular we will focus on stellar mass, which likely plays a key role in galaxy evolution at all redshifts (e.g. Kauffmann et al. 2003; Bundy et al. 2005; Drory et al. 2005; Rudnick et al. 2006).”
A new measurement of the evolving near-infrared galaxy luminosity function out to z≃ 4: a continuing challenge to theoretical models of galaxy formation (2008, background): “…the advent of the Spitzer satellite has provided the opportunity to derive reliable estimates for the stellar masses in galaxies at high redshift, allowing a direct study of the evolution of the mass function (Fontana 2004, 2006; Drory et al. 2005; Perez-Gonzalez et al. 2008; Pozzetti et al. 2007).”
The first appearance of the red sequence of galaxies in proto-clusters at 2 <~ z <~ 3 (2007, background): “Stellar mass functions derived for ‘general’ fields such as GOODS-MUSIC (Fontana et al. 2006) and FDF+GOODS-S (Drory et al. 2005) show that the massive end (>1011M⊙) starts to deviate from the low-z (z ∼ 0.5) function significantly at z ∼ 1.5 or so, which is slightly later than the epoch when we see”
The host galaxies and classification of active galactic nuclei (2006, methodology): “Drory et al. (2005) compared ∼ 17, 000 SDSS spectroscopically derived masses with (a) masses derived from population synthesis fits to the broadband SDSS and 2MASS colors, and (b) masses calculated from SDSS velocity dispersions and effective radii.”
Galactic star formation and accretion histories from matching galaxies to dark matter haloes (2012, background): “An alternative approach to link galaxies to haloes has emerged with the accumulation of data from large galaxy surveys (Cole et al. 2001; Bell et al. 2003; Drory et al. 2005; Fontana et al. 2006; Panter et al. 2007; Pérez-González et al. 2008; Li & White 2009; Santini et al. 2012).”
UltraVISTA: a new ultra-deep near-infrared survey in COSMOS (2012, background): “Near-infrared data play a key role in minimising the catastrophic failure rates in photometric redshift estimates and provides robust rest-frame visible flux determinations at z ∼ 2 (Ilbert et al. 2009), enabling measurements of the evolution of the mass buildup in stars over a large fraction of the”
Stellar Population Diagnostics of Elliptical Galaxy Formation (2006, background): “Drory et al. (2005) find that over the ∼ 200 arcmin2 area of the combined GOODS-South and FORS Deep Field, ∼ 50%, ∼ 25%, and at least ∼ 15% of the mass in stars is in place, respectively at z = 1, 2, and 3.”
The WIRCam Deep Survey I. Counts, colours, and mass-functions derived from near-infrared imaging in the CFHTLS deep fields (2011, result): “The results of GALFORM have been compared to previous observational data by Bower et al. who show good fits to the observed mass functions of Glazebrook et al. (2004), Fontana et al. (2004) and Drory et al. (2005).”
Galaxies–intergalactic medium interaction calculation – I. Galaxy formation as a function of large-scale environment (2009, methodology): “Observations indicate that star formation in the most massive galaxies observed today essentially concluded at z ∼ 1 (e.g. Drory et al. 2003, 2005; Pozzetti et al. 2003; Fontana et al. 2004; Kodama et al. 2004), and that their SFRs were higher in the past than they are at present (e.g. Cowie et al.…”
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…”
Metallicities and Physical Conditions in Star-forming Galaxies at z ~ 1.0-1.5 (2008, background): “These conditions may be quite common during the epoch atz≥ 1 when at least 50% of the local stellar mass density was formed (Bundy et al. 2006; Drory et al. 2005).”
The high‐redshift galaxy population in hierarchical galaxy formation models (2006, methodology): “7 compares the mass functions predicted by our model to local data from Cole et al. (2001) as well as to high-redshift estimates from Drory et al. (2005), based on the MUNICS survey, and from Fontana et al. (2006) based on the MUSIC-GOODS data.”
The galaxy stellar mass-star formation rate relation: evidence for an evolving stellar initial mass function? (2007, background): “Drory et al. (2005) determined the stellar mass function evolution from a K-band survey out to z ∼ 5, but at even moderately high redshifts the restframe light is actually quite blue, so their stellar mass estimates implicitly involve a significant IMF assumption.”
The many manifestations of downsizing: hierarchical galaxy formation models confront observations (2009, background): “…luminosity function (LF) for ‘passive’ evolution (Cimatti, Daddi & Renzini 2006) and by estimating the stellar mass using multiwavelength photometry (Drory et al. 2004, 2005; Borch et al. 2006; Bundy et al. 2006; Fontana et al. 2006; Conselice et al. 2007; Pozzetti et al. 2007; Marchesini et al.…”
Chemical Abundances of DEEP2 Star-forming Galaxies at z~1.0-1.5 (2005, background): “Important tests include the determination of the global star-formation-rate and stellar-mass density as a function of redshift (Schiminovich et al. 2005; Steidel et al. 1999; Giavalisco et al. 2004; Bunker et al. 2004; Dickinson et al. 2003; Fontana et al. 2004; Drory et al. 2005).”