The evolution of differential ages of passive galaxies at different redshifts (cosmic chronometers) has been proved to be a method potentially able to constrain the Hubble parameter in a ...cosmology-independent way, but the systematic uncertainties must be carefully evaluated. In this paper, we compute the contribution to the full covariance matrix of systematic uncertainties due to the choice of initial mass function, stellar library, and metallicity, exploring a variety of stellar population synthesis models. Through simulations in the redshift range 0 < z < 1.5, we find that the choice of the stellar population synthesis model dominates the total error budget on H(z), with contributions at a level of ∼4.5%, discarding the most discordant model. The contribution due to the choice of initial mass function is <0.5%, while that due to the stellar library is ∼6.6%, on average. We also assess the impact of an uncertainty in the stellar metallicity determination, finding that an error of ∼10% (5%) on the stellar metallicity propagates to a 9% (4%) error on H(z). These results are used to provide the combined contribution of these systematic effects on the error budget. For current H(z) measurements, where the uncertainties due to metallicity and star formation history were already included, we show that, using the more modern stellar libraries, the additional systematic uncertainty is between 5.4% (at z = 0.2) and 2.3% (at z = 1.5). To reach the goal of keeping the systematic error budget below the 1% level, we discuss the efforts needed to obtain higher resolution and signal-to-noise spectra and improvements in the modeling of stellar population synthesis.
Aims. Questions of how massive quiescent galaxies rapidly assembled and how abundant they are at high redshift are increasingly important in the study of galaxy formation. Looking at these systems ...can shed light on the processes of galaxy mass assembly and quenching of the star formation at early epochs. In order to address these questions, we aim to identify and characterize massive quiescent galaxies from z ∼ 2.5 out to the highest redshifts at which these systems can be found. The final purpose is to compare the results with the predictions of state-of-the-art semi-analytical models of galaxy formation and evolution. Methods. We defined observer-frame color–color diagrams to optimally select quiescent galaxies at z > 2.5 and applied them to the COSMOS2015 catalog. We refined the spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting analysis for the selected candidates to confirm their quiescent nature, then derived their number density, mass density, and stellar mass functions. Finally, we compared the results with previous observations and some current semi-analytic models. Results. We selected candidates for quiescent galaxies in the redshift range 2.5 ≲ z ≲ 4.5 from the COSMOS2015 catalog by means of two color–color diagrams. The additional SED fitting analysis allowed us to select 128 galaxies, consistent with being massive (log(M*/M⊙)≥10.6), old (ages ≳0.5 Gyr), and quiescent (log(sSFR yr−1) ≤ −10.5) objects at high redshift (2.5 < z < 4.5). Their number and mass densities are in fair agreement with previous observations and, if confirmed, show a discrepancy with current semi-analytical models of galaxy formation and evolution, that underpredict the number of massive quiescent systems up to a factor of ∼12 at 2.5 ≤ z < 3.0 and ∼10 at z ∼ 4.0. The evolution of the stellar mass functions (SMFs) of these systems is similar to previous estimates and indicates a disagreement with models, particularly with regard to the shape of the SMF. Conclusions. The present results add further evidence to the possibility that massive and quiescent galaxies can exist out to at least z ∼ 4. If future spectroscopic observations carried out with, for example, the James Webb Space Telecope (JWST), confirm the substantial presence of such a population, further work on modeling the stellar mass assembly, as well as supermassive black hole accretion and feedback processes at early cosmic epochs, is needed to understand how these systems formed, evolved, and quenched their star formation.
The expansion history of the universe can be constrained in a cosmology-independent way by measuring the differential age evolution of cosmic chronometers. This yields a measurement of the Hubble ...parameter H(z) as a function of redshift. The most reliable cosmic chronometers known so far are extremely massive and passively evolving galaxies. Age-dating these galaxies is, however, a difficult task, and even a small contribution of an underlying young stellar population could, in principle, affect the age estimate and its cosmological interpretation. We present several spectral indicators to detect, quantify, and constrain such contamination in old galaxies and study how their combination can be used to maximize the purity of cosmic chronometers selection. In particular, we analyze the Ca ii H/K ratio, the presence (or absence) of H and O ii emission lines, higher-order Balmer absorption lines, and UV flux; each indicator is especially sensitive to a particular age range, allowing us to detect young components ranging between 10 Myr and 1 Gyr. The combination of these indicators minimizes the contamination to a level below 1% in the case of ideal data. More importantly, it offers a way to control the systematic error on H(z) as a function of the contamination by young stellar populations. We show that for our previous measurements of the Hubble parameter, the possible bias induced by the presence of a younger component is well below the current errors. We envision that these indicators will be instrumental in paving the road for a robust and reliable dating of the old population and its cosmological interpretation.
The presence of massive quiescent galaxies at high redshifts is still a challenge for most models of galaxy formation. The aim of this work is to compare the observed number density and properties of ...these galaxies with the predictions of state-of-the-art models. The sample of massive quiescent galaxies has been selected from the COSMOS2015 photometric catalog with zphot ≥ 2.5, , and a specific star formation rate (sSFR) of . The photometric spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of the selected galaxies have been thoroughly analyzed based on different stellar population synthesis models. The final sample includes only those galaxies qualified as quiescent in all SED fitting runs. The observed properties have been compared to theoretical models: the number density of quiescent galaxies with is reproduced by some models, although there is a large scatter in their predictions. Instead, very massive are underpredicted by most of the current models of galaxy formation: some of them, built on the CARNage simulation, are consistent with data up to z ∼ 4, while at higher redshifts the volume of the considered simulation is too small to find such rare objects. Simulated galaxies that match the observed properties in the sSFR-M* plane at z ∼ 3 have been analyzed by reconstructing their evolutionary paths: their merger trees suggest that AGN feedback could be the key process allowing for a rapid quenching of the star formation at z 4 and that its treatment should be improved in models.
Deriving the expansion history of the Universe is a major goal of modern cosmology. To date, the most accurate measurements have been obtained with Type Ia Supernovae (SNe) and Baryon Acoustic ...Oscillations (BAO), providing evidence for the existence of a transition epoch at which the expansion rate changes from decelerated to accelerated. However, these results have been obtained within the framework of specific cosmological models that must be implicitly or explicitly assumed in the measurement. It is therefore crucial to obtain measurements of the accelerated expansion of the Universe independently of assumptions on cosmological models. Here we exploit the unprecedented statistics provided by the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS, 1-3) Data Release 9 to provide new constraints on the Hubble parameter H ( z ) using the cosmic chronometers approach. We extract a sample of more than 130000 of the most massive and passively evolving galaxies, obtaining five new cosmology-independent H ( z ) measurements in the redshift range 0.3 < z < 0.5, with an accuracy of ∼11–16% incorporating both statistical and systematic errors. Once combined, these measurements yield a 6% accuracy constraint of H ( z = 0.4293) = 91.8 ± 5.3 km/s/Mpc. The new data are crucial to provide the first cosmology-independent determination of the transition redshift at high statistical significance, measuring z t = 0.4 ± 0.1, and to significantly disfavor the null hypothesis of no transition between decelerated and accelerated expansion at 99.9% confidence level. This analysis highlights the wide potential of the cosmic chronometers approach: it permits to derive constraints on the expansion history of the Universe with results competitive with standard probes, and most importantly, being the estimates independent of the cosmological model, it can constrain cosmologies beyond—and including—the ΛCDM model.
Abstract
We take advantage of the publicly available LEGA-C spectroscopic survey to measure the stellar population properties of 140 individual massive and passive galaxies at
z
∼ 0.7. We develop and ...publicly release
PyLick
, a flexible Python code to measure UV to near-IR spectral indices. With
PyLick
we study the H/K ratio as a new diagnostic based on the pseudo-Lick Ca
ii
H and K indices and find that a cut in H/K < 1.1 can be used jointly with other criteria to select (or verify the purity of) samples of passive galaxies. By combining photometric and spectroscopic criteria, we select a reliable sample of passively evolving galaxies. We constrain single-burst stellar ages, metallicities Z/H, and
α
/Fe with an optimized set of Lick indices, exploring in detail the robustness of our measurement against different combinations. Even without imposing cosmological priors, the derived ages follow a clear trend compatible with the expected cosmological aging of the universe. We observe no significant redshift evolution for the metal abundance with respect to the values derived at
z
= 0, with median Z/H = 0.08 ± 0.18 and
α
/Fe = 0.13 ± 0.11. Finally, we analyze the relations between log age, Z/H,
α
/Fe, and the stellar velocity dispersion, finding slopes of (0.5 ± 0.1), (0.3 ± 0.2), and (0.2 ± 0.1), respectively; the small scatter of <0.2 dex points to rather homogeneous and short star formation histories. Overall, these results confirm and extend low-redshift findings of a mass-downsizing evolution. This work further strengthens the possibility of selecting pure samples of passive galaxies to be exploited reliably as cosmic chronometers to place independent cosmological constraints.
Fitting synthetic spectral energy distributions (SEDs) to the multiband photometry of galaxies to derive their star formation rates (SFRs), stellar masses, ages, etc. requires making a priori ...assumptions about their star formation histories (SFHs). A widely adopted parametrization of the SFH, the so-called τ models where SFR ∝ e−t/τ is shown to lead to unrealistically low ages when applied to a sample of actively star-forming galaxies at z∼ 2, a problem shared by other SFHs when the age is left as a free parameter in the fitting procedure. This happens because the SED of such galaxies, at all wavelengths, is dominated by their youngest stellar populations, which outshine the older ones. Thus, the SED of such galaxies conveys little information on the beginning of star formation (SF), i.e. on the age of their oldest stellar populations. To cope with this problem, besides τ models (hereafter called direct-τ models), we explore a variety of SFHs, such as constant SFR and inverted-τ models (with SFR ∝ e+t/τ), along with various priors on age, including assuming that SF started at high redshift in all the galaxies in the test sample. We find that inverted-τ models with such latter assumption give SFRs and extinctions in excellent agreement with the values derived using only the UV part of the SED, which is the one most sensitive to ongoing SF and reddening. These models are also shown to accurately recover the SFRs and masses of mock galaxies at z∼ 2 constructed from semi-analytic models, which we use as a further test. All other explored SFH templates do not fulfil these two tests as well as inverted-τ models do. In particular, direct-τ models with unconstrained age in the fitting procedure overestimate SFRs and underestimate stellar mass, and would exacerbate an apparent mismatch between the cosmic evolution of the volume densities of SFR and stellar mass. We conclude that for high-redshift star-forming galaxies an exponentially increasing SFR with a high formation redshift is preferable to other forms of the SFH so far adopted in the literature.
Abstract
How and when did galaxies form and assemble their stars and stellar mass? The answer to these questions, so crucial to astrophysics and cosmology, requires the full reconstruction of the ...so-called cosmic star formation rate density (SFRD), i.e., the evolution of the average star formation rate per unit volume of the universe. While the SFRD has been reliably traced back to 10–11 billion years ago, its evolution is still poorly constrained at earlier cosmic epochs, and its estimate is mainly based on galaxies luminous in the ultraviolet and with low obscuration by dust. This limited knowledge is largely due to the lack of an unbiased census of all types of star-forming galaxies in the early universe. We present a new approach to finding dust-obscured star-forming galaxies based on their emission at radio wavelengths coupled with the lack of optical counterparts. Here, we present a sample of 197 galaxies selected with this method. These systems were missed by previous surveys at optical and near-infrared wavelengths, and 22 of them are at very high redshift (i.e.,
z
> 4.5). The contribution of these elusive systems to the SFRD is substantial and can be as high as 40% of the previously known SFRD based on UV-luminous galaxies. The mere existence of such heavily obscured galaxies in the first two billion years after the Big Bang opens new avenues to investigate the early phases of galaxy formation and evolution, and to understand the links between these systems and the massive galaxies that ceased their star formation at later cosmic times.
Abstract With the growing number of gravitational wave (GW) detections and the advent of large galaxy redshift surveys, a new era in cosmology is emerging. This study explores the synergies between ...GWs and galaxy surveys to jointly constrain cosmological and GW population parameters. We introduce CHIMERA , a novel code for GW cosmology combining information from the population properties of compact binary mergers and galaxy catalogs. We study constraints for scenarios representative of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA O4 and O5 observing runs, assuming to have a complete catalog of potential host galaxies with either spectroscopic or photometric redshift measurements. We find that a percent-level measurement of H 0 could be achieved with the best 100 binary black holes (BBHs) in O5 using a spectroscopic galaxy catalog. In this case, the intrinsic correlation that exists between H 0 and the BBH population mass scales is broken. Instead, by using a photometric catalog the accuracy is degraded up to a factor of ∼9, leaving a significant correlation between H 0 and the mass scales that must be carefully modeled to avoid bias. Interestingly, we find that using spectroscopic redshift measurements in the O4 configuration yields a better constraint on H 0 compared to the O5 configuration with photometric measurements. In view of the wealth of GW data that will be available in the future, we argue the importance of obtaining spectroscopic galaxy catalogs to maximize the scientific return of GW cosmology.
Cosmological neutrinos strongly affect the evolution of the largest structures in the Universe, i.e. galaxies and galaxy clusters. We use large box-size full hydrodynamic simulations to investigate ...the non-linear effects that massive neutrinos have on the spatial properties of cold dark matter (CDM) haloes. We quantify the difference with respect to the concordance ΛCDM model of the halo mass function and of the halo two-point correlation function. We model the redshift-space distortions and compute the errors on the linear distortion parameter β introduced if cosmological neutrinos are assumed to be massless. We find that, if not taken correctly into account and depending on the total neutrino mass M
ν, these effects could lead to a potentially fake signature of modified gravity. Future nearly all-sky spectroscopic galaxy surveys will be able to constrain the neutrino mass if M
ν≳ 0.6 eV, using β measurements alone and independently of the value of the matter power spectrum normalization σ8. In combination with other cosmological probes, this will strengthen neutrino mass constraints and help breaking parameter degeneracies.
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