Abstract
We investigate the relationship between star formation activity and outflow properties on kiloparsec scales in a sample of 28 star-forming galaxies at
z
∼ 2–2.6, using adaptive optics ...assisted integral field observations from SINFONI on the Very Large Telescope. The narrow and broad components of the H
α
emission are used to simultaneously determine the local star formation rate surface density (
), and the outflow velocity
and mass outflow rate
, respectively. We find clear evidence for faster outflows with larger mass loading factors at higher
. The outflow velocities scale as
∝
0.34±0.10
, which suggests that the outflows may be driven by a combination of mechanical energy released by supernova explosions and stellar winds, as well as radiation pressure acting on dust grains. The majority of the outflowing material does not have sufficient velocity to escape from the galaxy halos, but will likely be re-accreted and contribute to the chemical enrichment of the galaxies. In the highest
regions the outflow component contains an average of ∼45% of the H
α
flux, while in the lower
regions only ∼10% of the H
α
flux is associated with outflows. The mass loading factor,
η
=
/SFR, is positively correlated with
but is relatively low even at the highest
:
η
≲ 0.5 × (380 cm
−3
/
n
e
). This may be in tension with the
η
≳ 1 required by cosmological simulations, unless a significant fraction of the outflowing mass is in other gas phases and has sufficient velocity to escape the galaxy halos.
The increasing abundance of passive “red-sequence” galaxies since z similar to 1-2 is mirrored by a coincident rise in the number of galaxies with spheroidal morphologies. In this paper, however, we ...show in detail, that, the correspondence between galaxy morphology and color is not perfect, providing insight into the physical origin of this evolution. Using the COSMOS survey, we study a significant population of red-sequence galaxies with disk-like morphologies. These passive disks typically have Sa-Sb morphological types with large bulges, but they are not confined to dense environments. They represent nearly one-half of all red-sequence galaxies and dominate at lower masses (less than or similar to 10(10) M(circle dot)) where they are increasingly disk-dominated. As a function of time, the abundance of passive disks with M(*) less than or similar to 10(11) M(circle dot) increases, but not as fast as red-sequence spheroidals in the same mass range. At higher mass, the passive disk population has declined since z similar to 1, likely because they transform into spheroidals. Based on these trends, we estimate that as much as 60% of galaxies transitioning onto the red sequence evolve through a passive disk phase. The origin of passive disks therefore has broad implications for our understanding of how star formation shuts down. Because passive disks tend to be more bulge-dominated than their star-forming counterparts, a simple fading of blue disks does not fully explain their origin. We explore the strengths and weaknesses of several more sophisticated explanations, including environmental effects, internal stabilization, and disk regrowth during gas-rich mergers. While previous work has sought to explain color and morphological transformations with a single process, these observations open the way to new insight by highlighting the fact that galaxy evolution may actually proceed through several separate stages.
We present a census of ionized gas outflows in 599 normal galaxies at redshift 0.6 < z < 2.7, mostly based on integral field spectroscopy of Hα, N ii, and S ii line emission. The sample fairly ...homogeneously covers the main sequence of star-forming galaxies with masses 9.0 < log(M */M ⊙) < 11.7, and probes into the regimes of quiescent galaxies and starburst outliers. About one-third exhibits the high-velocity component indicative of outflows, roughly equally split into winds driven by star formation (SF) and active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The incidence of SF-driven winds correlates mainly with SF properties. These outflows have typical velocities of ∼450 km s−1, local electron densities of n e ∼ 380 cm−3, modest mass loading factors of ∼0.1–0.2 at all galaxy masses, and energetics compatible with momentum driving by young stellar populations. The SF-driven winds may escape from log(M */M ⊙) ≲ 10.3 galaxies, but substantial mass, momentum, and energy in hotter and colder outflow phases seem required to account for low galaxy formation efficiencies in the low-mass regime. Faster AGN-driven outflows (∼1000–2000 km s−1) are commonly detected above log(M */M ⊙) ∼ 10.7, in up to ∼75% of log(M */M ⊙) ≳ 11.2 galaxies. The incidence, strength, and velocity of AGN-driven winds strongly correlates with stellar mass and central concentration. Their outflowing ionized gas appears denser (n e ∼ 1000 cm−3), and possibly compressed and shock-excited. These winds have comparable mass loading factors as the SF-driven winds but carry ∼10 (∼50) times more momentum (energy). The results confirm our previous findings of high-duty-cycle, energy-driven outflows powered by AGN above the Schechter mass, which may contribute to SF quenching.
Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we adopt the specific star formation rate (sSFR)-... diagram as a diagnostic tool to understand quenching in different environments. sSFR is the specific star ...formation rate and ... is the stellar surface density in the inner kpc. Although both the host halo mass and group-centric distance affect the satellite population, we find that these can be characterized by a single number, the quenched fraction, such that key features of the sSFR-... diagram vary smoothly with this proxy for the 'environment'. Particularly, the sSFR of star-forming galaxies decreases smoothly with this quenched fraction, the sSFR of satellites being 0.1 dex lower than in the field. Furthermore, ... of the transition galaxies (i.e. the 'green valley' or GV) decreases smoothly with the environment by as much as 0.2 dex for M* = 10 super( 9.75-10) from the field, and decreasing for satellites in larger haloes and at smaller radial distances within same-mass haloes. We interpret this shift as indicating the relative importance of today's field quenching track versus the cluster quenching track. These environmental effects in the sSFR-... diagram are most significant in our lowest mass range (9.75 < log M*/M... < 10). One feature that is shared between all environments is that at a given M*, quenched galaxies have about 0.2-0.3 dex higher ... than the star-forming population. These results indicate that either ... increases (subsequent to satellite quenching), or ... for individual galaxies remains unchanged, but the original M* or the time of quenching is significantly different from those now in the GV. (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae/symbols omitted.)
We report the detection of extended Lyα emission around individual star-forming galaxies at redshifts z = 3−6 in an ultradeep exposure of the Hubble Deep Field South obtained with MUSE on the ...ESO-VLT. The data reach a limiting surface brightness (1σ) of ~1 × 10-19 erg s-1 cm-2 arcsec-2 in azimuthally averaged radial profiles, an order of magnitude improvement over previous narrowband imaging. Our sample consists of 26 spectroscopically confirmed Lyα-emitting, but mostly continuum-faint (mAB ≳ 27) galaxies. In most objects the Lyα emission is considerably more extended than the UV continuum light. While five of the faintest galaxies in the sample show no significantly detected Lyα haloes, the derived upper limits suggest that this is due to insufficient S/N. Lyα haloes therefore appear to be ubiquitous even for low-mass (~ 108−109 M⊙) star-forming galaxies at z > 3. We decompose the Lyα emission of each object into a compact component tracing the UV continuum and an extended halo component, and infer sizes and luminosities of the haloes. The extended Lyα emission approximately follows an exponential surface brightness distribution with a scale length of a few kpc. While these haloes are thus quite modest in terms of their absolute sizes, they are larger by a factor of 5−15 than the corresponding rest-frame UV continuum sources as seen by HST. They are also much more extended, by a factor ~5, than Lyα haloes around low-redshift star-forming galaxies. Between ~40% and ≳90% of the observed Lyα flux comes from the extended halo component, with no obvious correlation of this fraction with either the absolute or the relative size of the Lyα halo. Our observations provide direct insights into the spatial distribution of at least partly neutral gas residing in the circumgalactic medium of low to intermediate mass galaxies at z > 3.
We use >9400 quiescent and star-forming galaxies at z 2 in COSMOS/UltraVISTA to study the average size evolution of these systems, with focus on the rare ultra-massive population at . The large 2 ...square degree survey area delivers a sample of ∼400 such ultra-massive systems. Accurate sizes are derived using a calibration based on high-resolution images from the Hubble Space Telescope. We find that at these very high masses, the size evolution of star-forming and quiescent galaxies is almost indistinguishable in terms of normalization and power-law slope. We use this result to investigate possible pathways of quenching massive m > M* galaxies at z < 2. We consistently model the size evolution of quiescent galaxies from the star-forming population by assuming different simple models for the suppression of star formation. These models include an instantaneous and delayed quenching without altering the structure of galaxies and a central starburst followed by compaction. We find that instantaneous quenching reproduces the observed mass-size relation of massive galaxies at z > 1 well. Our starburst+compaction model followed by individual growth of the galaxies by minor mergers is preferred over other models without structural change for galaxies at z > 0.5. None of our models is able to meet the observations at m > M* and z < 1 without significant contribution of post-quenching growth of individual galaxies via mergers. We conclude that quenching is a fast process in galaxies with m ≥ 1011 M , and that major mergers likely play a major role in the final steps of their evolution.
The extreme Deep Field (XDF) combines data from 10 years of observations with the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the Wide-Field Camera 3 Infra-Red (WFC3/IR) into the ...deepest image of the sky ever in the optical/near-IR. Since the initial observations of the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF) in 2003, numerous surveys and programs, including supernovae follow-up, HUDF09, CANDELS, and HUDF12, have contributed additional imaging data across this region. However, these images have never been combined and made available as one complete ultra-deep image dataset. We combine them now with the XDF program. Our new and improved processing techniques provide higher quality reductions of the total dataset. All WFC3/IR and optical ACS data sets have been fully combined and accurately matched, resulting in the deepest imaging ever taken at these wavelengths, ranging from 29.1 to 30.3 AB mag (5sigma in a 0".35 diameter aperture) in 9 filters. The combined image therefore reaches to 31.2 AB mag 5sigma (32.9 at 1sigma) for a flat functionof sub(nu) source. The gains in the optical for the four filters done in the original ACS HUDF correspond to a typical improvement of 0.15 mag, with gains of 0.25 mag in the deepest areas. Such gains are equivalent to adding ~130 to ~240 orbits of ACS data to the HUDF. Improved processing alone results in a typical gain of ~0.1 mag. Our 5sigma (optical+near-IR) SExtractor catalogs reveal about 14,140 sources in the full field and about 7121 galaxies in the deepest part of the XDF.
We present the first results on the search for very bright (M AB --21) galaxies at redshift z ~ 8 from the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies (BoRG) survey. BoRG is a Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field ...Camera 3 (WFC3) pure-parallel survey that is obtaining images on random lines of sight at high Galactic latitudes in four filters (F606W, F098M, F125W, and F160W), with integration times optimized to identify galaxies at z 7.5 as F098M dropouts. We discuss here results from a search area of approximately 130 arcmin2 over 23 BoRG fields, complemented by six other pure-parallel WFC3 fields with similar filters. This new search area is more than two times wider than previous WFC3 observations at z ~ 8. We identify four F098M-dropout candidates with high statistical confidence (detected at greater than 8 Delta *s confidence in F125W). These sources are among the brightest candidates currently known at z ~ 8 and approximately 10 times brighter than the z = 8.56 galaxy UDFy-38135539. They thus represent ideal targets for spectroscopic follow-up observations and could potentially lead to a redshift record, as our color selection includes objects up to z ~ 9. However, the expected contamination rate of our sample is about 30% higher than typical searches for dropout galaxies in legacy fields, such as the GOODS and HUDF, where deeper data and additional optical filters are available to reject contaminants.
Aims. The role of galaxy mergers in massive galaxy evolution, and in particular to mass assembly and size growth, remains an open question. In this paper we measure the merger fraction and rate, both ...minor and major, of massive early-type galaxies (M ⋆ ≥ 1011 M⊙) in the COSMOS field, and study their role in mass and size evolution. Methods. We used the 30-band photometric catalogue in COSMOS, complemented with the spectroscopy of the zCOSMOS survey, to define close pairs with a separation on the sky plane 10 h-1 kpc ≤ rp ≤ 30 h-1 kpc and a relative velocity Δv ≤ 500 km s-1 in redshift space. We measured both major (stellar mass ratio μ ≡ M ⋆ ,2/M ⋆ ,1 ≥ 1/4) and minor (1/10 ≤ μ < 1/4) merger fractions of massive galaxies, and studied their dependence on redshift and on morphology (early types vs. late types). Results. The merger fraction and rate of massive galaxies evolves as a power-law (1 + z)n, with major mergers increasing with redshift, nMM = 1.4, and minor mergers showing little evolution, nmm ~ 0. When split by their morphology, the minor merger fraction for early-type galaxies (ETGs) is higher by a factor of three than that for late-type galaxies (LTGs), and both are nearly constant with redshift. The fraction of major mergers for massive LTGs evolves faster (nMMLT ~ 4 ) than for ETGs (nMMET= 1.8). Conclusions. Our results show that massive ETGs have undergone 0.89 mergers (0.43 major and 0.46 minor) since z ~ 1, leading to a mass growth of ~30%. We find that μ ≥ 1/10 mergers can explain ~55% of the observed size evolution of these galaxies since z ~ 1. Another ~20% is due to the progenitor bias (younger galaxies are more extended) and we estimate that very minor mergers (μ < 1/10) could contribute with an extra ~20%. The remaining ~5% should come from other processes (e.g., adiabatic expansion or observational effects). This picture also reproduces the mass growth and the velocity dispersion evolution of these galaxies. We conclude from these results, and after exploring all the possible uncertainties in our picture, that merging is the main contributor to the size evolution of massive ETGs at z ≲ 1, accounting for ~50−75% of that evolution in the last 8 Gyr. Nearly half of the evolution due to mergers is related to minor (μ < 1/4) events.
We utilize the newly acquired, ultra-deep WFC3/IR observations over the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) to search for star-forming galaxies at z ~ 8-8.5, only 600 million years from recombination, ...using a Y 105-dropout selection. The new 4.7 arcmin2 WFC3/IR observations reach to ~28.8 AB mag (5 Delta *s) in the Y 105 J 125 H 160 bands. These remarkable data reach ~1.5 AB mag deeper than the previous data over the HUDF, and now are an excellent match to the HUDF optical ACS data. For our search criteria, we use a two-color Lyman break selection technique to identify z ~ 8-8.5Y 105-dropouts. We find five likely z ~ 8-8.5 candidates. The sources have H 160-band magnitudes of ~28.3 AB mag and very blue UV-continuum slopes, with a median estimated Delta *b of -2.5 (where f Delta *l Delta *l Delta *b). This suggests that z ~ 8 galaxies are not only essentially dust free but also may have very young ages or low metallicities. The observed number of Y 105-dropout candidates is smaller than the 20 +/- 6 sources expected assuming no evolution from z ~ 6, but is consistent with the five expected extrapolating the Bouwens et al. luminosity function (LF) results to z ~ 8. These results provide evidence that the evolution in the LF seen from z ~ 7 to z ~ 3 continues to z ~ 8. The remarkable improvement in the sensitivity of WFC3/IR has enabled Hubble Space Telescope to cross a threshold, revealing star-forming galaxies at z~ 8-9.
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