The Redshift Evolution of Wet, Dry, and Mixed Galaxy Mergers from Close Galaxy Pairs in the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey

By Lihwai Lin, David R. Patton, D. Koo, K. Casteels, Christopher J. Conselice, S. Faber, J. Lotz, C. Willmer, B. Hsieh, Tzihong Chiueh and 4 more. 2008

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We study the redshift evolution of galaxy pair fractions and merger rates for different types of galaxies using kinematic pairs selected from the DEEP2 Redshift Survey, combined with other surveys at lower redshifts. By parameterizing the evolution of the pair fraction as (1 + z)m, we find that the companion rate increases mildly with redshift with m = 0.41 ± 0.20 for all galaxies with –21 < MeB < − 19. Blue galaxies show slightly faster evolution in the blue companion rate with m = 1.27 ± 0.35, while the red companion rate of red galaxies is better fitted with the negative slope m = − 0.92 ± 0.59. For the chosen luminosity range, we find that at low redshift the pair fraction within the red sequence exceeds that of the blue cloud, indicating a higher merger probability among red galaxies compared to that among the blue galaxies. With further assumptions on the merger timescale and the fraction of pairs that will merge, the galaxy major merger rates for 0.1 < z < 1.2 are estimated to be ~10−3 h3 Mpc −3 Gyr −1 with a factor of 2 uncertainty. At z ∼ 1.1, 68% of mergers are wet, 8% of mergers are dry, and 24% of mergers are mixed, compared to 31% wet mergers, 25% dry mergers, and 44% mixed mergers at z ∼ 0.1. Wet mergers dominate merging events at z = 0.2–1.2, but the relative importance of dry and mixed mergers increases over time. About 22%-54% of present-day L* galaxies have experienced major mergers since z ∼ 1.2, depending on the definition of major mergers. Moreover, 24% of the red galaxies at the present epoch have had dry mergers with luminosity ratios between and since z ∼ 1. Our results also suggest that the wet mergers and/or mixed mergers may be partially responsible for producing red galaxies with intermediate masses, while a significant portion of massive red galaxies are assembled through dry mergers at later times.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ee28e60ac3de4e46deb039dcca6e30d9b227f79f

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THE BULK OF THE BLACK HOLE GROWTH SINCE z ∼ 1 OCCURS IN A SECULAR UNIVERSE: NO MAJOR MERGER–AGN CONNECTION (2010, background): “…as a whole, regardless of stellar mass. Major merging is a key element in the assembly and evolution of massive galaxies (e.g., Bell et al. 2006; Lin et al. 2008; Bundy et al. 2009; van der Wel et al. 2009; Robaina et al. 2010), and in order to test if the fraction of highly distorted AGN host…”
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. 2009).”
THE DEEP2 GALAXY REDSHIFT SURVEY: DESIGN, OBSERVATIONS, DATA REDUCTION, AND REDSHIFTS (2012, background): “However, X-ray detected AGN are not preferentially found in major mergers, and the fraction of merging galaxies is not appreciably higher at z∼ 1 than now (Pierce et al. 2007; Lin et al. 2004, 2008; Lotz et al. 2008).”
MERGERS IN ΛCDM: UNCERTAINTIES IN THEORETICAL PREDICTIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF THE MERGER RATE (2010, background): “This makes the merger time within ∼ 20− 50kpc shorter by a factor≈ 2, relative to that estimated without baryonic galaxies (see e.g. Lotz et al. 2008a, 2010b,a), and can even lead to the merger and/or destruction of the baryonic galaxiesbeforethe subhalo (their bound dark matter) is significantly gr”
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).”
Galaxy Zoo: the fraction of merging galaxies in the SDSS and their morphologies (2009, background): “…et al. 2000; Le Fevre et al. 2000; Patton et al. 2002; Conselice et al. 2003; Bundy et al. 2005; Bell et al. 2006; Conselice, Rajgor & Myers 2008; Lin et al. 2008; Lotz et al. 2008a; Hsieh. et al. 2008, Patton et al. 2008), with comparatively little carried out to examine their morphologies and…”
MERGERS AND BULGE FORMATION IN ΛCDM: WHICH MERGERS MATTER? (2009, background): “…a similar number of mergers for M∗ > 1010M⊙ galaxies sincez= 1 and about again as many sincez= 2, they also find that the number of mergers increases significantly with galaxy mass; Lin et al. (2008) estimate that∼ 54% ofL∗ (M∗ ∼ 1011M⊙) galaxies have experienced aµ > 0.25 merger sincez= 1.2.”
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).”
Discriminating Between the Physical Processes that Drive Spheroid Size Evolution (2009, background): “…models (Khochfar & Silk 2006; Hopkins et al. 2009d; Naab et al. 2009) or permitted by observational constraints implying ∼1– 2 major dry mergers (typical mass ratio ∼1:3) per system since z = 2 (van Dokkum 2005; Bell et al. 2006; Lin et al. 2008; Darg et al. 2009a,b; Bridge et al., in preparation).”
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THE GREATER IMPACT OF MERGERS ON THE GROWTH OF MASSIVE GALAXIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR MASS ASSEMBLY AND EVOLUTION SINCE z ≃ 1 (2009, methodology): “With this in mind, we note that the value of fpair =0.02–0.03 measured by both Bell et al. (2006a) using COMBO-17 as well as the kinematic pair study of Lin et al. (2004) and Lin et al. (2008) agrees with our findings here.”
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The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey - Evolution of the major merger rate since z ~ 1 from spectroscopically confirmed galaxy pairs (2008, unknown): “Only recently samples with spectroscopic redshiftsfor both galaxies in a pair are becoming available (Lin et al., 2007, Lin et al., 2008).”