The Galaxy Mass Function up to z=4 in the GOODS-MUSIC sample: into the epoch of formation of massive galaxies ⋆

By A. Fontana, S. Salimbeni, A. Grazian, E. Giallongo, L. Pentericci, M. Nonino, F. Fontanot, N. Menci, P. Monaco, S. Cristiani and 9 more. 2006

340 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Aims. The goal of this work is to measure the evolution of the Galaxy Stellar Mass Function and of the resulting Stellar Mass Density up to redshift $\simeq$4, in order to study the assembly of massive galaxies in the high redshift Universe. Methods. We have used the GOODS-MUSIC catalog, containing ~3000 K s-selected galaxies with multi-wavelength coverage extending from the U band to the Spitzer $8~\mu$m band, of which 27% have spectroscopic redshifts and the remaining fraction have accurate photometric redshifts. On this sample we have applied a standard fitting procedure to measure stellar masses. We compute the Galaxy Stellar Mass Function and the resulting Stellar Mass Density up to redshift $\simeq$4, taking into proper account the biases and incompleteness effects. Results. Within the well known trend of global decline of the Stellar Mass Density with redshift, we show that the decline of the more massive galaxies may be described by an exponential timescale of $\simeq$6 Gyr up to $z\simeq 1.5$, and proceeds much faster thereafter, with an exponential timescale of $\simeq$0.6 Gyr. We also show that there is some evidence for a differential evolution of the Galaxy Stellar Mass Function, with low mass galaxies evolving faster than more massive ones up to $z\simeq 1{-}1.5$ and that the Galaxy Stellar Mass Function remains remarkably flat (i.e. with a slope close to the local one) up to $z\simeq 1{-}1.3$. Conclusions. The observed behaviour of the Galaxy Stellar Mass Function is consistent with a scenario where about 50% of present-day massive galaxies formed at a vigorous rate in the epoch between redshift 4 and 1.5, followed by a milder evolution until the present-day epoch.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aca3e8c2365c9f87235c16b98ea250c73b48c454

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 masses of SDSS-III/BOSS galaxies at z ∼ 0.5 and constraints to galaxy formation models (2012, background): “At larger look-back times, several authors studied the stellar mass function as a function of redshift (Brinchmann & Ellis 2000; Drory et al. 2001, 2004, 2005; Cohen 2002; Dickinson et al. 2003; Fontana et al. 2003, 2006; Rudnick et al. 2003; Glazebrook etal.”
DOUBLE COMPACT OBJECTS. II. COSMOLOGICAL MERGER RATES (2013, methodology): “For redshifts z < 4, we describe the distribution of galaxy masses using a Schechter-type probability density function, calibrated to observations (Fontana et al. 2006): Φ(Mgal,z) = Φ∗(z) ln(10)a1+α(z)e−a, (2) where Φ∗(z) = 0.0035(1 + z)−2.2, a = Mgal · 10−Mz (Mz = 11.16 + 0.17z − 0.07z2), and α(z)…”
THE COSMOS-WIRCam NEAR-INFRARED IMAGING SURVEY. I. BzK-SELECTED PASSIVE AND STAR-FORMING GALAXY CANDIDATES AT z ≳ 1.4 (2009, background): “Our results complement determinations of the galaxy stellar mass function at intermediate redshifts which show that total mass in stars formed in semi-analytic models is too low at z ∼ 2 compared to models (Fontana et al. 2006).”
Galaxy evolution in cosmological simulations with outflows ― I. Stellar masses and star formation rates (2011, neutral): “Observationally, α is seen to evolve as α ≈ α0+(0.082± 0.033)z (Fontana et al. 2006), where α0 ≈ 1.2 − 1.3.”
GALAXY GROUPS IN THE SDSS DR4. III. THE LUMINOSITY AND STELLAR MASS FUNCTIONS (2008, background): “Both functions have been extensively investigated in the literature for galaxies of different colors and morphological types (e.g., Lin et al. 1996; Norberg et al. 2002; Madgwick et al. 2002; Blanton et al. 2003b; Bell et al. 2003; Fontana et al. 2006).”
GALAXY CLUSTERING IN THE NEWFIRM MEDIUM BAND SURVEY: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STELLAR MASS AND DARK MATTER HALO MASS AT 1 < z < 2 (2010, methodology): “…in the middle panel show the 1σ confidence interval of this relation derived by sub-halo abundance matching (SHAM) to the SDSS stellar mass function at z = 0.1 and stellar mass function measurements from Fontana et al. (2006) in the Chandra Deep Field South at z = 1.5 from Moster et al. (2010).”
SELF-CONSISTENT MODELS OF THE AGN AND BLACK HOLE POPULATIONS: DUTY CYCLES, ACCRETION RATES, AND THE MEAN RADIATIVE EFFICIENCY (2007, result): “However, we also note that our result on the stellar mass function is in good agreement with the recent estimate by Fontana et al. (2006).”
THE NUMBER DENSITY AND MASS DENSITY OF STAR-FORMING AND QUIESCENT GALAXIES AT 0.4 ⩽ z ⩽ 2.2 (2011, neutral): “4 (see also, e.g., Fontana et al. 2006; Marchesini et al. 2009; Pozzetti et al. 2010).”
Compact high-redshift galaxies are the cores of the most massive present-day spheroids (2009, methodology): “4, we include the difference in number densities estimated by Fontana et al. (2006), van Dokkum et al. (2006) and Marchesini et al. (2008), and variation in the distribution of profile shapes/sizes fitted in other works, including Trujillo et al. (2007), Toft et al. (2007), Buitrago et al. (2008),…”
The many manifestations of downsizing: hierarchical galaxy formation models confront observations (2009, methodology): “For the GOODS-MUSIC data (Santini et al. 2009), we show with open (filled) circles the bins where, according to the authors, the incompleteness is (not) significant; open symbols are then upper limits to the average SFR.”
The SEDs and host galaxies of the dustiest GRB afterglows (2011, methodology): “To permit a direct comparison with results published in the literature (e.g., Fontana et al. 2006; Marchesini et al. 2009; Ilbert et al. 2010, SGL09), we used the attenuation law of Calzetti et al. (2000) derived for starburst galaxies in the fitting, unless different reddening laws provided a…”
zCOSMOS – 10k-bright spectroscopic sample - The bimodality in the galaxy stellar mass function: exploring its evolution with redshift (2009, methodology): “However, most of the hierarchical galaxy assembly models are unable to completely account for the observed GSMF and its evolution (see Fontana et al. 2004, 2006, Monaco et al. 2006, Caputi et al. 2006, Marchesini et al. 2009, Fontanot et al. 2009 for a detailed comparison with models).”
The VIMOS VLT deep survey: the assembly history of the stellar mass in galaxies: from the young to the old universe (2007, positive): “…the stronger decrease with redshift of the low-mass population, with a low-mass end of the GSMF which remains substantially flat up to high redshift, is not reproduced by most of the theoretical galaxy assembly models, which tend to overpredict the low-mass end of the MF (see Fontana et al. 2006).”
The effects of gas on morphological transformation in mergers: implications for bulge and disc demographics (2009, methodology): “…a given mass; using the monotonic-ranking method of Conroy, Wechsler & Kravtsov (2006) applied to the redshift-dependent galaxy mass functions from Fontana et al. (2006) or Pérez-González et al. (2008), or using the z = 0 constraints determined directly from clustering of Sloan Digital Sky…”
Dissecting the size evolution of elliptical galaxies since z∼ 1: puffing-up versus minor-merging scenarios (2011, background): “…of the Royal Astronomical Society C© 2011 RAS Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/415/4/3903/1750192 by guest on 28 July 2018 of evolution in the number density of massive early-type galaxies (see e.g. Fontana et al. 2006; Ferreras et al. 2009b; Banerji et al. 2010).”
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, methodology): “…line in Figure 2 shows the completeness level of our survey for instantaneous star-forming bursts extincted by E(B − V )=1.1 magnitudes (as used by Fontana et al. 2006, based on the typical extinction of highly obscured high redshift galaxies) and following a Calzetti et al. (2000) extinction…”
GALAXY STELLAR MASS ASSEMBLY BETWEEN 0.2 < z < 2 FROM THE S-COSMOS SURVEY (2009, methodology): “Following Fontana et al. (2006) and Pozzetti et al. (2007), we imposed the prior E(B − V ) < 0.15 if age/τ > 4 (a significant extinction is only allowed for galaxies with a high SFR).”