Structure and Star Formation in Galaxies out to z = 3: Evidence for Surface Density Dependent Evolution and Upsizing

By M. Franx, P. V. van Dokkum, N. F. Förster Schreiber, S. Wuyts, I. Labbé, S. Toft. 2008

370 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present an analysis of galaxies in the CDF-South. We find a tight relation to z = 3 between color and size at a given mass, with red galaxies being small, and blue galaxies being large. We show that the relation is driven by stellar surface density or inferred velocity dispersion: galaxies with high surface density are red and have low specific star formation rates, and galaxies with low surface density are blue and have high specific star formation rates. Surface density and inferred velocity dispersion are better correlated with specific star formation rate and color than stellar mass. Hence stellar mass by itself is not a good predictor of the star formation history of galaxies. In general, galaxies at a given surface density have higher specific star formation rates at higher redshift. Specifically, galaxies with a surface density of (1–3) × 109 M☉ kpc−2 are “red and dead” at low redshift, approximately 50% are forming stars at z = 1, and almost all are forming stars by z = 2. This provides direct additional evidence for the late evolution of galaxies onto the red sequence. The sizes of galaxies at a given mass evolve like 1/(1 + z)0.59 ± 0.10. Hence galaxies undergo significant upsizing in their history. The size evolution is fastest for the highest mass galaxies and quiescent galaxies. The persistence of the structural relations from z = 0 to z = 2.5, and the upsizing of galaxies imply that a relation analogous to the Hubble sequence exists out to z = 2.5, and possibly beyond. The star-forming galaxies at z ⩾ 1.5 are quite different from star-forming galaxies at z = 0, as they have likely very high gas fractions, and star formation timescales comparable to the orbital time.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Global and Planetary Change, Instrumentation

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. R. Somerville
4. R. Dav'e
5. A. Dekel
6. P. V. van Dokkum
7. C. Conroy
8. T. Naab

In Global and Planetary Change

1. P. Hopkins
2. M. Cappellari
3. D. Keres̆
4. M. Franx
5. L. Hernquist
6. F. V. D. Bosch
7. Volker Springel
8. A. Dekel

In Instrumentation

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. P. V. van Dokkum
4. A. Dekel
5. R. Somerville
6. R. Dav'e
7. M. Cappellari
8. C. Conroy

Citations in the corpus

• Discriminating Between the Physical Processes that Drive Spheroid Size Evolution (2009, background): “…massive (M∗ ∼ 1011 M ) galaxies are compiled in van der Wel et al. (2008); we adopt their compilation (see Trujillo et al. 2006a; Longhetti et al. 2007; Toft et al. 2007; Zirm et al. 2007; Buitrago et al. 2008; Cimatti et al. 2008; Franx et al. 2008; Rettura et al. 2008; van Dokkum et al. 2008).”
• How do minor mergers promote inside-out growth of ellipticals, transforming the size, density profile and dark matter fraction? (2012, neutral): “…2007; Toft et al. 2007; Zirm et al. 2007; Trujillo et al. 2007; Zirm et al. 2007; Buitrago et al. 2008; van Dokkum et al. 2008; Cimatti et al. 2008; Franx et al. 2008; Saracco et al. 2009; Damjanov et al. 2009; Kriek et al. 2009; Bezanson et al. 2009; van Dokkum et al. 2010; Saglia 2010;…”
• A LINK BETWEEN STAR FORMATION QUENCHING AND INNER STELLAR MASS DENSITY IN SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY CENTRAL GALAXIES (2013, background): “It thus challenges the notion of a fixed, mass-independent surface density threshold (c.f., Kauffmann et al. 2006; Franx et al. 2008).”
• CANDELS: THE COSMIC ASSEMBLY NEAR-INFRARED DEEP EXTRAGALACTIC LEGACY SURVEY (2011, positive): “Radii also yield stellar mass surface densities, which have been implicated as a threshold parameter for quenching and evolution to the red sequence (Kauffmann et al. 2003; Franx et al. 2008).”
• THE STAR FORMATION MASS SEQUENCE OUT TO z = 2.5 (2012, methodology): “Wuyts et al. (2011b) observed similar trends across the SFR-M⋆ plane, where LIR/LUV increases along the sequence and at a given M⋆ towards high SFRs.”
• EMERGE – an empirical model for the formation of galaxies since z ∼ 10 (2017, neutral): “We define a galaxy to be quenched if its sSFR is below a redshift dependent threshold given by Ψ < 0.3t−1H , where tH is the Hubble time at that redshift (see e.g. Franx et al. 2008).”
• ON SIZES, KINEMATICS, M/L GRADIENTS, AND LIGHT PROFILES OF MASSIVE COMPACT GALAXIES AT z ∼ 2 (2010, background): “Likewise, a decrease in the size of star-forming galaxies at a given mass is observationally well established (Trujillo et al. 2006; Franx et al. 2008; Williams et al. 2010).”
• The effects of gas on morphological transformation in mergers: implications for bulge and disc demographics (2009, background): “This may not be appropriate, but at z < 1 the two correspond well, and the compactness, size, and kinematics of the ‘passive’ objects do appear distinct from star-forming objects (Kriek et al. 2006; Toft et al. 2007; Trujillo et al. 2007; Franx et al. 2008; Genzel et al. 2008).”
• CONSTRAINING THE LOW-MASS SLOPE OF THE STAR FORMATION SEQUENCE AT 0.5 < z < 2.5 (2014, methodology): “There does not exist a single SFR indicator that can probe the full dynamic range of stellar masses for individual galaxies (Wuyts et al. 2011).”
• MINOR MERGERS AND THE SIZE EVOLUTION OF ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES (2009, background): “The galaxy is slightly more compact than typical SDSS early-type galaxies at this mass but lies within the observed distribution (Shen et al. 2003, see also Franx et al. 2008).”
• GALAXY STRUCTURE AND MODE OF STAR FORMATION IN THE SFR–MASS PLANE FROM z ∼ 2.5 TO z ∼ 0.1 (2011, background): “Consistent with previous results by, e.g., Franx et al. (2008) and Toft et al. (2009), high-redshift quiescent galaxies are more compact than the bulk of SFGs at the same epoch.”
• LSD: Lyman-break galaxies Stellar populations and Dynamics – I. Mass, metallicity and gas at z∼ 3.1 (2009, background): “Other authors find an evolution of the slope with redshift (Dunne et al. 2008), while in some samples the SFR seems to be more directly related to stellar surface density rather than stellar mass (Franx et al. 2008).”
• Galaxy morphology and star formation in the Illustris Simulation at z = 0 (2015, background): “…Kauffmann et al. 2003; Blanton et al. 2003; Wuyts et al. 2011), environment versus mass quenching (e.g., Peng et al. 2010), and the tight correlation between galaxy compactness, star formation, and morphology (e.g., Franx et al. 2008; Williams et al. 2010; Barro et al. 2013; Omand et al. 2014).”
• A HIGHLY CONSISTENT FRAMEWORK FOR THE EVOLUTION OF THE STAR-FORMING “MAIN SEQUENCE” FROM z ∼ 0–6 (2014, methodology): “LIR is derived based on a single template that is the log average of DH02 templates with 1 < α < 2.5 following Wuyts et al. (2008), Franx et al. (2008), and Muzzin et al. (2010), while LUV is derived based on best-fitting B11 models.”
• Compact high-redshift galaxies are the cores of the most massive present-day spheroids (2009, background): “…high-redshift spheroids may have significantly smaller effective radii than low-redshift analogues of the same mass (e.g. Daddi et al. 2005; Trujillo et al. 2006a, 2007; Toft et al. 2007; van Dokkum et al. 2008; Franx et al. 2008; van der Wel et al. 2008; Cimatti et al. 2008; Buitrago et al. 2008).”
• ON STAR FORMATION RATES AND STAR FORMATION HISTORIES OF GALAXIES OUT TO z ∼ 3 (2011, background): “We do find only a very weak correlation with angular size (i.e., the number of independent resolution elements in which the galaxies are resolved), a property that itself correlates, at a given mass, with star formation activity (Franx et al. 2008; Toft et al. 2009).”
• STRUCTURAL PARAMETERS OF GALAXIES IN CANDELS (2012, background): “…surveys have provided large samples, and despite the limited spatial resolution (typically 0.4-0.8′′, or ∼ 3 − 6 kpc at z > 1), general and fundamental structural properties have been measured out to z ∼ 2 (Trujillo et al. 2004, 2006; Franx et al. 2008; Williams et al. 2009; Chang et al. 2012).”
• The ATLAS3D project – XX. Mass–size and mass–σ distributions of early-type galaxies: bulge fraction drives kinematics, mass-to-light ratio, molecular gas fraction and stellar initial mass function (2012, background): “…of their scaling parameters (e.g. Bender, Burstein & Faber 1992; Burstein et al. 1997; Kauffmann et al. 2003b; Gallazzi et al. 2006) and from the study of their evolution with redshift (e.g. van Dokkum & Franx 1996; Kelson et al. 1997; van Dokkum et al. 1998; Treu et al. 2005; Franx et al. 2008).”
• CONSTRAINTS ON THE ASSEMBLY AND DYNAMICS OF GALAXIES. I. DETAILED REST-FRAME OPTICAL MORPHOLOGIES ON KILOPARSEC SCALE OF z ∼ 2 STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2010, methodology): “…colors) is observed to be much more closely related to stellar mass surface density than to stellar mass (e.g., Kauffmann et al. 2003, 2006, for the SDSS sam- 16 Förster Schreiber et al. ple), and these relationships are found to persist out to at leas z∼ 2 (Franx et al. 2008; Maier et al. 2009).”