The Assembly of Diversity in the Morphologies and Stellar Populations of High-Redshift Galaxies

By C. Papovich, Mark Dickinson, M. Giavalisco, Christopher J. Conselice, H. Ferguson. 2005

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We have used deep images from the Hubble Space Telescope to study the evolution in the morphologies, sizes, stellar masses, colors, and internal color dispersion of galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field-North. We selected two galaxy samples at 0.7 ≤ z ≤ 1.4 and 1.9 ≤ z ≤ 3.0 from a near-infrared, flux-limited catalog with complete photometric and spectroscopic redshift information. At z ~ 1 the majority of galaxies with M(B) ≤ -20.5 have rest-frame optical morphologies of early- to mid-type Hubble-sequence galaxies, and many galaxies show strong transformations between their rest-frame UV and optical morphologies. In stark contrast, galaxies at z ~ 2.3 all have compact and irregular rest-frame optical morphologies with little difference between their rest-frame UV and optical morphologies, and with no clearly evident Hubble-sequence candidates. The mean galaxy size increases from z ~ 2.3 to z ~ 1 by roughly 40%, and the number density of galaxies larger than 3 kpc increases by a factor of ≈7. The size-luminosity distribution of z ~ 1 galaxies is broadly consistent with that in the local universe, allowing for passive evolution. However, we argue that galaxies at z ~ 2.3 are not the fully formed progenitors of present-day galaxies, and they must continue to grow in both their sizes and stellar masses. We have quantified the differences in morphology by measuring the galaxies' internal UV-optical color dispersion, which constrains the amount of current star formation relative to older stellar populations. The mean and scatter in the galaxies' UV-optical total colors and internal color dispersion increase from z ~ 2.3 to z ~ 1. At z ~ 1 many galaxies with large internal color dispersion are spirals, with a few irregular and interacting systems. Few z ~ 2.3 galaxies have high internal color dispersion, and we infer that those that do are also actively merging. Using simple models, we interpret the change in the total color and internal color dispersion as evidence for the presence of older and more diverse stellar populations at z ~ 1 that are not generally present at z ≳ 2. The z ~ 2.3 galaxies do not increase their stellar diversity as rapidly as they could given basic timescale arguments and simple models. We conclude that the star formation histories of galaxies at z ≳ 2 are dominated by discrete, recurrent starbursts, which quickly homogenize the galaxies' stellar content and are possibly associated with mergers. The increase in the diversification of stellar populations by z ~ 1 implies that merger-induced starbursts occur less frequently than at higher redshifts, and more quiescent modes of star formation become the dominant mechanism. This transition in the mode of star formation coincides with the emergence of Hubble-sequence galaxies, which seems to occur around z ~ 1.4.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b8aaa3ab78fdf96652693a443b2a422d0d2eadd9

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Citations in the corpus

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The fundamental properties of galaxies and a new galaxy classification system (2006, methodology): “at z ∼ 0 As the Hubble Space Telescope can now reveal the morphological properties, and stellar masses of thousands of galaxies at z > 0.5 (Papovich et al. 2005; Bundy et al. 2005; Conselice et al. 2004, 2005a), direct morphological and stellar mass comparisons with the z = 0 galaxy population are…”
The Evolution of Galaxy Structure Over Cosmic Time (2014, methodology): “…the most common methods for measuring galaxy structure in a non-parametric way is through the CAS system (e.g., Conselice 2003; §2.3.1 - 2.3.3) and through similar parameters (Takamiya 1999; Papovich et al. 2003, 2005; Abraham et al. 2003; Lotz et al. 2004; Law et al. 2007; Freeman et al. 2013).”
THE KILOPARSEC-SCALE KINEMATICS OF HIGH-REDSHIFT STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2009, background): “…Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK (pettini@ast.cam.ac.uk) 6 Center for Cosmology, Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697 (saw@uci.edu) coherent structures of the Hubble sequence which have predominated since redshift z ∼ 1 (Giavalisco et al. 1996; Papovich et al. 2005).”
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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).”
FIREWORKS U38-to-24 μm Photometry of the GOODS Chandra Deep Field-South: Multiwavelength Catalog and Total Infrared Properties of Distant Ks-selected Galaxies (2008, methodology): “In order to study the bolometric properties of typical galaxies at z 2, infrared luminosities have been derived from the observed 24 m flux by means of IR spectral energy distribution (SED) templates (e.g., Papovich et al. 2005; Reddy et al. 2006).”
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The Morphological Diversities among Star-forming Galaxies at High Redshifts in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (2006, background): “Quantitative measurements of the internal color gradients also show that this effect is more severe at low redshifts (z≤ 1) than at high redshifts (Papovich et al. 2005).”
Spitzer Observations of Massive, Red Galaxies at High Redshift (2005, background): “…with red colors and morphologies consistent with passively evolving early-type galaxies, implying that they formed their stellar populations at zform k 2 3 (see, e.g., Cimatti et al. 2002a; Moustakas & Somerville 2002; Moustakas et al. 2004; Papovich et al. 2005; Treu et al. 2005; McCarthy 2004).”
Star formation in galaxy mergers with realistic models of stellar feedback and the interstellar medium (2012, background): “…including morphological disturbances, and may be linked to the emergence of massive, quenched (non-star-forming), compact ellipticals at times as early as z ∼ 2–4 (Papovich et al. 2005; Tacconi et al. 2006; Schinnerer et al. 2008; Tacconi et al. 2008; Younger et al. 2008b; Chapman et al. 2009).”
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New insights into the stellar content and physical conditions of star-forming galaxies at z = 2-3 from spectral modelling (2008, background): “…to those encountered today in the relatively rare ‘luminous infrared (IR) galaxies’ (e.g. Reddy et al. 2006 and references therein), and that the transition from starburst dominated to a more quiescent mode of star formation occurred at redshifts between z 2 and 1 (e.g. Papovich et al. 2005).”
THE EVOLUTION OF GALAXY NUMBER DENSITY AT z < 8 AND ITS IMPLICATIONS (2016, background): “…at z < 8 (e.g., Bouwens et al. 2009; Duncan et al. 2014; Madau & Dickinson 2014), while at the same time galaxies become larger and less peculiar (e.g., Conselice et al. 2004; Papovich et al. 2005; Buitrago et al. 2013; Mortlock et al. 2013; Lee et al. 2013; Conselice 2014; Boada et al. 2015).”
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