No Arabic abstract
We studied the chronology of galactic bulge and disc formation by analysing the relative contributions of these components to the B-band rest-frame luminosity density at different epochs. We present the first estimate of the evolution of the fraction of rest-frame B-band light in galactic bulges and discs since redshift z~0.8. We performed a bulge-to-disc decomposition of HST/ACS images of 3266 galaxies in the zCOSMOS-bright survey with spectroscopic redshifts in the range 0.7 < z < 0.9. We find that the fraction of B-band light in bulges and discs is $(26 pm 4)%$ and $(74 pm 4)%$, respectively. When compared with rest-frame B-band measurements of galaxies in the local Universe in the same mass range ($10^{9} M_{odot}lessapprox M lessapprox 10^{11.5} M_{odot}$), we find that the B-band light in discs decreases by ~30% from z~0.7-0.9 to z~0, while the light from the bulge increases by ~30% over the same period of time. We interpret this evolution as the consequence of star formation and mass assembly processes, as well as morphological transformation, which gradually shift stars formed at half the age of the Universe from star-forming late-type/irregular galaxies toearlier types and ultimately into spheroids.
This series of papers aims at understanding the formation and evolution of non-barred disc galaxies. We use the new spectro-photometric decomposition code, C2D, to separate the spectral information of bulges and discs of a statistically representative sample of galaxies from the CALIFA survey. Then, we study their stellar population properties analising the structure-independent datacubes with the Pipe3D algorithm. We find a correlation between the bulge-to-total ($B/T$) luminosity (and mass) ratio and galaxy stellar mass. The $B/T$ mass ratio has only a mild evolution with redshift, but the bulge-to-disc ($B/D$) mass ratio shows a clear increase of the disc component since redshift $z < 1$ for massive galaxies. The mass-size relation for both bulges and discs describes an upturn at high galaxy stellar masses (log{(M_{star}/M_{sun})} > 10.5). The relation holds for bulges but not for discs when using their individual stellar masses. We find a negligible evolution of the mass-size relation for both the most massive (log{(M_{star rm ,b,d}/M_{sun})} > 10) bulges and discs. For lower masses, discs show a larger variation than bulges. We also find a correlation between the Sersic index of bulges and both galaxy and bulge stellar mass, which does not hold for the disc mass. Our results support an inside-out formation of nearby non-barred galaxies, and they suggest that i) bulges formed early-on and ii) they have not evolved much through cosmic time. However, we find that the early properties of bulges drive the future evolution of the galaxy as a whole, and particularly the properties of the discs that eventually form around them.
We present quantitative morphology measurements of a sample of optically selected group galaxies at 0.3 < z < 0.55 using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the GIM2D surface brightness--fitting software package. The group sample is derived from the Canadian Network for Observational Cosmology Field Redshift survey (CNOC2) and follow-up Magellan spectroscopy. We compare these measurements to a similarly selected group sample from the Millennium Galaxy Catalogue (MGC) at 0.05 < z < 0.12. We find that, at both epochs, the group and field fractional bulge luminosity (B/T) distributions differ significantly, with the dominant difference being a deficit of disk--dominated (B/T < 0.2) galaxies in the group samples. At fixed luminosity, z=0.4 groups have ~ 5.5 +/- 2 % fewer disk--dominated galaxies than the field, while by z=0.1 this difference has increased to ~ 19 +/- 6 %. Despite the morphological evolution we see no evidence that the group environment is actively perturbing or otherwise affecting the entire existing disk population. At both redshifts, the disks of group galaxies have similar scaling relations and show similar median asymmetries as the disks of field galaxies. We do find evidence that the fraction of highly asymmetric, bulge--dominated galaxies is 6 +/- 3 % higher in groups than in the field, suggesting there may be enhanced merging in group environments. We replicate our group samples at z=0.4 and z=0 using the semi-analytic galaxy catalogues of Bower et al (2006). This model accurately reproduces the B/T distributions of the group and field at z=0.1. However, the model does not reproduce our finding that the deficit of disks in groups has increased significantly since z=0.4.
The obscured accretion phase in BH growth is a key ingredient in many models linking the AGN activity with the evolution of their host galaxy. At present, a complete census of obscured AGN is still missing. The purpose of this work is to assess the reliability of the [NeV] emission line at 3426 A to pick up obscured AGN up to z~1 by assuming that [NeV] is a reliable proxy of the intrinsic AGN luminosity and using moderately deep X-ray data to characterize the amount of obscuration. A sample of 69 narrow-line (Type 2) AGN at z=0.65-1.20 were selected from the 20k-zCOSMOS Bright galaxy sample on the basis of the presence of the [NeV] emission. The X-ray properties of these galaxies were then derived using the Chandra-COSMOS coverage of the field; the X-ray-to-[NeV] flux ratio, coupled with X-ray spectral and stacking analyses, was then used to infer whether Compton-thin or Compton-thick absorption were present in these sources. Then the [NeV] luminosity function was computed to estimate the space density of Compton-thick (CT) AGN at z~0.8. Twenty-three sources were detected by Chandra, and their properties are consistent with moderate obscuration (on average, ~a few 10^{22} cm^-2). The X-ray properties of the remaining 46 X-ray undetected Type 2 AGN were derived using X-ray stacking analysis. Current data indicate that a fraction as high as ~40% of the present sample is likely to be CT. The space density of CT AGN with logL_2-10keV>43.5 at z=0.83 is (9.1+/-2.1) 10^{-6} Mpc^{-3}, in good agreement with both XRB model expectations and the previously measured space density for objects in a similar redshift and luminosity range. We regard our selection technique for CT AGN as clean but not complete, since even a mild extinction in the NLR can suppress [NeV] emission. Therefore, our estimate of their space density should be considered as a lower limit.
We measure the spatial clustering of galaxies as a function of their morphological type at z~0.8, for the first time in a deep redshift survey with full morphological information. This is obtained by combining high-resolution HST imaging and VLT spectroscopy for about 8,500 galaxies to I_AB=22.5 with accurate spectroscopic redshifts from the zCOSMOS-Bright redshift survey. At this epoch, early-type galaxies already show a significantly stronger clustering than late-type galaxies on all probed scales. A comparison to the SDSS at z~0.1, shows that the relative clustering strength between early and late morphological classes tends to increase with cosmic time at small separations, while on large scales it shows no significant evolution since z~0.8. This suggests that most early-type galaxies had already formed in intermediate and dense environments at this epoch. Our results are consistent with a picture in which the relative clustering of different morphological types between z~1 and z~0, reflects the evolving role of environment in the morphological transformation of galaxies, on top of the global mass-driven evolution.
We study the color structure of disk galaxies in the Groth strip at redshifts 0.1<z<1.2. Our aim is to test formation models in which bulges form before/after the disk. We find smooth color distributions with gentle outward blueing across the galaxy image: bulges are not distinctly redder than their disks; and bulge colors strongly correlate with global colors. The results suggest a roughly coeval evolution of bulges and disks. About 50% of the nuclei of galaxies with central light excesses above the outer exponential profile hold passively evolving red populations. The remainder 50% are galaxies with central blue colors similar to their disks. They may be bulges in formation, or the central parts of disks with non-exponential surface brightness profiles.