Evolution of the Frequency of Luminous (≥LV⋆) Close Galaxy Pairs at z < 1.2 in the COSMOS Field

By J. Kartaltepe, D. Sanders, N. Scoville, D. Calzetti, P. Capak, A. Koekemoer, B. Mobasher, T. Murayama, Mara Salvato, Shunji S. Sasaki and 1 more. 2007

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We measure the fraction of luminous galaxies in pairs at projected separations of 5-20 kpc out to z = 1.2 in the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) field using ACS images and photometric redshifts derived from an extensive multiwavelength data set. Analysis of a complete sample of 106,188 galaxies more luminous than MV = -19.8 (~ LV⋆) in the redshift range 0.1 < z < 1.2 yields 1749 galaxy pairs. These data are supplemented by a local (z = 0-0.1) value for the galaxy pair fraction derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. After statistically correcting the COSMOS pair sample for chance line-of-sight superpositions, the evolution in the pair fraction is fit by a power law ∝ (1 + z)n=3.1±0.1. If this strongly evolving pair fraction continues out to higher redshift, ~50% of all luminous galaxies at z ~ 2 are in close pairs. This clearly signifies that galaxy mergers are a very significant and possibly dominant mechanism for galaxy evolution during the epoch of galaxy formation at z = 1-3.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a686780b5807d6f40c177ff4755af9498e0ec857

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Citations in the corpus

GALAXY MERGERS AND THE MASS–METALLICITY RELATION: EVIDENCE FOR NUCLEAR METAL DILUTION AND FLATTENED GRADIENTS FROM NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS (2010, background): “At higher redshifts, when the merger and interaction rates were higher than at present (e.g., Kartaltepe et al. 2007), the dilution of nuclear abundances may be a more ubiquitous phenomenon.”
HISTORY OF GALAXY INTERACTIONS AND THEIR IMPACT ON STAR FORMATION OVER THE LAST 7 Gyr FROM GEMS (2009, background): “First, it should be noted that the claim of strong evolution in the close pair fraction out to z ∼ 1.2 in the C0SMOS study by Kartaltepe et al. (2007) comes about when the low redshift z ∼ 0 point from the SDSS pair catalog (Allam et al. 2004) is included in their analysis.”
GALAXY STELLAR MASS ASSEMBLY BETWEEN 0.2 < z < 2 FROM THE S-COSMOS SURVEY (2009, background): “However, there appears to be little consensus between direct estimates of the merger rate (e.g. Le Fèvre et al. 2000, Kartaltepe et al. 2007, Lotz et al. 2008).”
MAJOR GALAXY MERGERS ONLY TRIGGER THE MOST LUMINOUS ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2012, result): “Our results suggest that while high-luminosity AGN triggered by major mergers are more common at high redshifts because of the increase of merger rate with redshift (e.g., Kartaltepe et al. 2007), this is not the dominant effect in determining the AGN triggering mechanism.”
MERGERS IN ΛCDM: UNCERTAINTIES IN THEORETICAL PREDICTIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF THE MERGER RATE (2010, background): “…are in mergers – strongly morphologically disturbed or in “major” similar-mass pairs about to merge (at small scales and small relative velocities) (Bridge et al. 2007, 2010; Kartaltepe et al. 2007; Conselice et al. 2009; Jogee et al. 2009; Lotz et al. 2008b; Lin et al. 2008; Robaina et al. 2010).”
HOW DO DISKS SURVIVE MERGERS? (2008, unknown): “1 : 3) sincez∼ 2− 3 (Lotz et al. 2008; Bell et al. 2006; Bridge et al. 2007; Lin et al. 2008; Kartaltepe et al. 2007).”
The structures of distant galaxies – III. The merger history of over 20 000 massive galaxies at z < 1.2 (2008, methodology): “We compare our derived merger fractions to previously published merger fractions from Lotz et al. (2008a) and pair studies from Kartaltepe et al. (2007), Lin et al. (2008) and de Ravel et al. (2008).”
Galaxy merger morphologies and time-scales from simulations of equal-mass gas-rich disc mergers (2008, background): “However, current observational constraints on the galaxy merger rate are highly uncertain and strongly debated (Ryan et al. 2008; Lin et al. 2008; Lotz et al. 2008; Renzini 2007; Kartaltepe et al. 2007; Masjedi et al. 2008).”
THE GREATER IMPACT OF MERGERS ON THE GROWTH OF MASSIVE GALAXIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR MASS ASSEMBLY AND EVOLUTION SINCE z ≃ 1 (2009, methodology): “Similar values were also found by Kartaltepe et al. (2007) and Hsieh et al. (2008) and, for z .”
CANDELS: CONSTRAINING THE AGN–MERGER CONNECTION WITH HOST MORPHOLOGIES AT z ∼ 2 (2011, background): “…merger-driven accretion in this model is tied to the cosmological galaxy merger rate, which increases rapidly with redshift (Conselice et al. 2003; Kartaltepe et al. 2007) whereas quiescent accretion is related to the mass function and gas fraction of late-type galaxies, which evolve more slowly.”
The Redshift Evolution of Wet, Dry, and Mixed Galaxy Mergers from Close Galaxy Pairs in the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey (2008, background): “…1995; Neuschaefer et al. 1997; Patton et al. 1997; Carlberg et al. 2000; Le Fèvre et al. 2000; Patton et al. 2002; Conselice et al. 2003; Bundy et al. 2004; Lin et al. 2004; Cassata et al. 2005; Conselice 2006; Bell et al. 2006b; Lotz et al. 2008; Kampczyk et al. 2007; Kartaltepe et al. 2007).”
The effects of gas on morphological transformation in mergers: implications for bulge and disc demographics (2009, background): “…strongly morphologically disturbed or in ‘major’ similar-mass pairs about to merge (at small scales and small relative velocities) (Bridge et al. 2007, 2009; Kartaltepe et al. 2007; Conselice, Rajgor & Myers 2008; Lin et al. 2008; Lotz et al. 2008b; Conselice, Yang & Bluck 2009; Jogee et al.…”
The Evolution of Galaxy Structure Over Cosmic Time (2014, result): “Other studies have found similar values, with m = 1.5 ± 0.7 for brighter galaxies in the VVDS (de Ravel et al. 2009), and m = 3.1 ± 0.1 for pairs up to z ∼ 1 in the COSMOS field (Kartaltepe et al. 2007).”
The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey - Evolution of the major merger rate since z ~ 1 from spectroscopically confirmed galaxy pairs (2008, unknown): “…Burkey et al., 1994; Carlberg, Pritchet & Infante, 1994; Yee & Ellingson, 1994; Patton et al., 1997; Le Fèvre et al., 2000; Patton et al., 2000; Patton et al., 2002; Conselice et al., 2003; Lin et al., 2004; Kartaltepe et al., 2007; Lin et al., 2008; Lotz et al., 2008; Kampczyk et al., 2007).”
Dusty Star Forming Galaxies at High Redshift (2014, background): “…classification of DSFGs is often too difficult to attempt in the optical or near-infrared due to extreme dust obscuration, however, out to z ∼ 1.2, Kartaltepe et al. (2007) find high fractions of optically-luminous galaxies in pairs (the evolution of the pair fraction going as ∝ (1 +…”
CAN MINOR MERGING ACCOUNT FOR THE SIZE GROWTH OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES? NEW RESULTS FROM THE CANDELS SURVEY (2011, background): “1, our measurements are broadly in agreement with previous results when analogous samples are compared and search apertures are matched (e.g., Kartaltepe et al. 2007; Lin et al. 2008; Rawat et al. 2008; de Ravel et al. 2009).”
The merger rate of galaxies in the Illustris simulation: a comparison with observations and semi-empirical models (2015, background): “…range allowed by observations according to theoretical work by Lotz et al. (2011), where observational estimates of the major merger fraction from Kartaltepe et al. (2007), Lin et al. (2008), de Ravel et al. (2009), and Bundy et al. (2009) are converted into merger rates by means of…”