Trujillo, Ignacio and Conselice, C. J. and Bundy, Kevin and Cooper, M. C. and Eisenhardt, P. and Ellis, Richard S. (2007) Strong size evolution of the most massive galaxies since z ~ 2. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 382 (1). pp. 109-120. ISSN 0035-8711 http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20091201-151313900
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Abstract
Using the combined capabilities of the large near-infrared Palomar/DEEP-2 survey, and the superb resolution of the Advanced Camera for Surveys HST camera, we explore the size evolution of 831 very massive galaxies (M_⋆ ≥ 10^(11)h^(−2)_(70) M_⊙) since z ~ 2. We split our sample according to their light concentration using the Sérsic index n. At a given stellar mass, both low (n < 2.5) and high (n > 2.5) concentrated objects were much smaller in the past than their local massive counterparts. This evolution is particularly strong for the highly concentrated (spheroid like) objects. At z ~ 1.5, massive spheroid-like objects were a factor of 4 (±0.4) smaller (i.e. almost two orders of magnitudes denser) than those we see today. These small sized, high-mass galaxies do not exist in the nearby Universe, suggesting that this population merged with other galaxies over several billion years to form the largest galaxies we see today.
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| Additional Information: | © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 RAS. Accepted 2007 August 25; received 2007 July 24; in original form 2007 May 10. Published Online: 26 Oct 2007. Authors are grateful to M. Barden and D. McIntosh for providing us with the GEMS data points to allow us a comparison of our results with their less massive galaxies.We acknowledge useful discussions with O. Almaini and A. Arag´on-Salamanca.We also thank the useful suggestions from an anonymous referee. The Palomar and DEEP-2 surveys would not have been completed without the active help of the staff at the Palomar and Keck observatories. The Palomar Survey was supported by NSF grant AST-0307859 and NASA STScI grant HST- AR-09920.01.A. Support for the ACS imaging of the EGS in GO program 10134 was provided by NASA through NASA grant HST-GO-10134.13-A from the Space Telescope Science Institute. | ||||||||
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| Subject Keywords: | galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: formation; galaxies: fundamental parameters; galaxies: high-redshift; galaxies: structure | ||||||||
| Record Number: | CaltechAUTHORS:20091201-151313900 | ||||||||
| Persistent URL: | http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20091201-151313900 | ||||||||
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| Usage Policy: | No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided. | ||||||||
| ID Code: | 16853 | ||||||||
| Collection: | CaltechAUTHORS | ||||||||
| Deposited By: | Jason Perez | ||||||||
| Deposited On: | 03 Dec 2009 22:04 | ||||||||
| Last Modified: | 26 Dec 2012 11:35 |
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