The Evolution and Structure of Early-Type Field Galaxies: A Combined Statistical Analysis of Gravitational Lenses

By D. Rusin, C. Kochanek. 2004

135 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We introduce a framework for simultaneously investigating the structure and luminosity evolution of early-type gravitational lens galaxies. The method is based on the fundamental plane, which we interpret using the aperture mass-radius relations derived from lensed image geometries. We apply this method to our previous sample of 22 lens galaxies with measured redshifts and excellent photometry. Modeling the population with a single mass profile and evolutionary history, we find that early-type galaxies are nearly isothermal (logarithmic density slope n = 2.06 ± 0.17, 68% C.L.) and that their stars evolve at a rate of d log(M/L)B/dz = -0.50 ± 0.19 (68% C.L.) in the rest-frame B band. For a Salpeter initial mass function and a concordance cosmology, this implies a mean star formation redshift of ⟨zf⟩ > 1.5 at 95% confidence. While this model can neatly describe the mean properties of early-type galaxies, it is clear that the scatter of the lens sample is too large to be explained by observational uncertainties alone. We therefore consider statistical models in which the galaxy population is described by a distribution of star formation redshifts. We find that stars must form over a significant range of redshifts (Δzf > 1.7, 68% C.L.), which can extend as low as zf ~ 1 for some acceptable models. However, the typical galaxy will still have an old stellar population (⟨zf⟩ > 1.5). The lens sample therefore favors early star formation in field ellipticals, even if we make no a priori assumption regarding the shape of the mass distribution in lenses and include the range of possible deviations from homology in the uncertainties. Our evolution results call into question several recent claims that early-type galaxies in low-density environments have much younger stars than those in rich clusters.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ff28ef8bfcdf244754b84fd83cc3d9aa4a7cd183

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

1. M. Cappellari
2. P. Hopkins
3. L. Hernquist
4. T. Treu
5. Thomas J. Cox
6. P. V. van Dokkum
7. C. Conroy
8. T. Naab

In Instrumentation

1. M. Cappellari
2. P. Hopkins
3. T. Treu
4. L. Hernquist
5. Thomas J. Cox
6. P. V. van Dokkum
7. C. Conroy
8. T. Naab

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

1. J. Newman
2. T. Treu
3. M. Bartelmann
4. M. Oguri
5. L. Hernquist
6. M. Cappellari
7. Richard S. Ellis
8. C. Casey

Citations in the corpus

• HerMES: CANDIDATE GRAVITATIONALLY LENSED GALAXIES AND LENSING STATISTICS AT SUBMILLIMETER WAVELENGTHS (2012, background): “In combination with dynamical studies, lensing mass reconstruction allows one to obtain the density profile of the dark matter in individual lensing galaxies down to ∼ 10 kpc scales (e.g. Miralda-Escude 1995; Dalal & Kochanek 2002; Metcalf & Zhao 2002; Rusin & Kochanek 2005; Treu & Koopmans 2004).”
• The Time Delays of Gravitational Lens HE 0435–1223: An Early-Type Galaxy with a Rising Rotation Curve (2005, background): “…suggesting that galaxies have nearly flat rotation curves (isothermal lens models) extending from the inner regions (see, e.g., Gerhard et al. 2001; Rusin & Kochanek 2005; Winn et al. 2004; Treu & Koopmans 2004), but there are some interesting counterexamples (e.g., Romanowsky et al. 2003; Treu &…”
• The Sloan Lens ACS Survey. II. Stellar Populations and Internal Structure of Early-Type Lens Galaxies (2005, background): “In a pioneering work, Kochanek et al. (2000; see also Rusin et al. 2003) assumed isothermal mass density profiles (see Rusin & Kochanek 2005 for a more general approach) to convert image separations into velocity dispersion and construct the FP of early-type lens galaxies without stellar velocity…”
• Mass-sheet degeneracy, power-law models and external convergence: Impact on the determination of the Hubble constant from gravitational lensing (2013, background): “Since then, many more systems have been studied (Rusin & Kochanek 2005; Koopmans et al. 2009).”
• The Sloan Lens ACS Survey. IV. The Mass Density Profile of Early-Type Galaxies out to 100 Effective Radii (2007, background): “It is now a well established from SLACS (paper III) and earlier strong lensing studies (e.g. Treu & Koopmans 2002; Rusin et al. 2003; Rusin & Kochanek 2005; Treu & Koopmans 2004) that the total mass profile of lens galaxies is close to isothermal (ρ ∝ r−2) within Reff .”
• Gravitationally lensed quasars and supernovae in future wide-field optical imaging surveys (2010, methodology): “For instance, Rusin & Kochanek (2005) constrained the mean radial density profile by combining the Einstein radius measurements for lenses with different source redshifts.”
• Determining the Properties and Evolution of Red Galaxies from the Quasar Luminosity Function (2005, background): “…et al. 1999; Schade et al. 1999; Menanteau et al. 2001; Kuntschner et al. 2002; Treu et al. 2002; Pozzetti et al. 2003; van de Ven et al. 2003; Bell et al. 2004b; Förster Schreiber et al. 2004; Labbé et al. 2005), and gravitationally lensed objects (e.g., Rusin et al. 2003; Rusin & Kochanek 2005).”
• Gravitational lensing (2010, methodology): “Analysing 22 galaxy lenses, and adapting a mass model composed of a concentrated component representing the light and a power-law component representing the dark matter, it was found in [409] that the slope of the density profile is very nearly isothermal, with a double-logarithmic slope of n = 2.”
• Two-dimensional kinematics of SLACS lenses – III. Mass structure and dynamics of early-type lens galaxies beyond z ≃ 0.1 (2011, result): “As highlighted by these studies, as well as by a number of other works (see Treu & Koopmans 2002, Koopmans & Treu 2003, Treu & Koopmans 2004, Rusin & Kochanek 2005, Jiang & Kochanek 2007, Grillo et al. 2008, Koopmans et al. 2009, Trott et al. 2010, van de Ven et al. 2010, Dutton et al. 2011,…”
• Measuring the inclination and mass-to-light ratio of axisymmetric galaxies via anisotropic Jeans models of stellar kinematics (2008, background): “Both the fast- ⋆ E-mail: cappellari@astro.ox.ac.uk rotator early-types (Gerhard et al. 2001; Rusin & Kochanek 2005; Cappellari et al. 2006; Koopmans et al. 2006; Thomas et al. 2007) and the spiral galaxies (Persic et al. 1996; Palunas & Williams 2000; Bell & de Jong 2001; Kassin et al. 2006) appear…”
• The Assembly History of Field Spheroidals: Evolution of Mass-to-Light Ratios and Signatures of Recent Star Formation (2005, background): “…the fundamental plane (FP; Djorgovski & Davis 1987; Dressler et al. 1987; Treu et al. 1999, 2001a, 2002; van Dokkum & Ellis 2003; Gebhardt et al. 2003; van der Wel et al. 2004; Treu & Koopmans 2004; see also Kochanek et al. 2000; Rusin et al. 2003b; van de Ven et al. 2003; Rusin & Kochanek 2005).”
• Detection of a dark substructure through gravitational imaging (2009, background): “Gravitational lensing, especially in combination with other ⋆ E-mail: vegetti@astro.rug.nl techniques, provides an invaluable and sometimes unique insight in answering these questions (e.g. Rusin & Kochanek 2005; Treu & Koopmans 2004; Koopmans et al. 2009, and references therein).”
• The SAURON project - IV. The mass-to-light ratio, the virial mass estimator and the Fundamental Plane of elliptical and lenticular galaxies (2005, result): “In the latter case the median dark matter fraction for our sample is found to be∼ 30% of the total mass, broadly consistent with earlier findings from dynamics (e.g. Gerhard et al. 2001; Thomas et al. 2005) and gravitational lensing (e.g. Treu & Koopmans 2004; Rusin & Kochanek 2005).”
• Gravitational Lens Time Delays: A Statistical Assessment of Lens Model Dependences and Implications for the Global Hubble Constant (2006, background): “Rusin & Kochanek (2005) obtained ¼ 0:94 0:17 by combining the Einstein radii of many lensed quasars with the fundamental plane relation of elliptical galaxies.”
• The CFHTLS strong lensing legacy survey - I. Survey overview and T0002 release sample (2006, background): “As pointed out by Rusin et al. (2003) and Rusin & Kochanek (2005), using a large sample of well-studied strong lenses, it is possible to describe galaxy structure and the transition between the inner stellar matter-dominated and the outer dark matter-dominated galaxy haloes, without being sensitive…”
• Probing the Coevolution of Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxies Using Gravitationally Lensed Quasar Hosts (2006, background): “…al. 1998; Leh́ar et al. 2000; Muñoz, Kochanek, & Keeton 2001), statistical properties of lens samples (e.g. Chae et al. 2002, Zhang 2004, Chen 2005, Rusin & Kochanek 2005), and dynamical studies (Rix et al. 1997, Treu & Koopmans 2004, Treu et al. 2006), that the typical lens has a radial density…”
• The SAURON project – X. The orbital anisotropy of elliptical and lenticular galaxies: revisiting the (V/σ, ɛ) diagram with integral‐field stellar kinematics (2007, background): “Evidencefrom dynamical modelling (e.g. Gerhard et al. 2001; Cappellari et al. 2006) and gravitational lensing (e.g. Treu & Koopmans 2004; Rusin & Kochanek 2005; Koopmans al.”
• THE SLOAN LENS ACS SURVEY. IX. COLORS, LENSING, AND STELLAR MASSES OF EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES (2009, background): “…be remarkably homogeneous, as evidenced by the tight scaling relationships of the Fundamental Plane (Djorgovski & Davis 1987; Dressler et al. 1987) and the small scatter of their nearly-isothermal central density profiles (e.g., Rusin & Kochanek 2005; Rusin et al. 2003; Koopmans et al. 2006, 2009).”