No Arabic abstract
We analyse the sizes, colour gradients, and resolved stellar mass distributions for 36 massive and passive galaxies in the cluster XMMUJ2235-2557 at z=1.39 using optical and near-infrared Hubble Space Telescope imaging. We derive light-weighted Sersic fits in five HST bands ($i_{775},z_{850},Y_{105},J_{125},H_{160}$), and find that the size decreases by ~20% going from $i_{775}$ to $H_{160}$ band, consistent with recent studies. We then generate spatially resolved stellar mass maps using an empirical relationship between $M_{*}/L_{H_{160}}$ and $(z_{850}-H_{160})$ and use these to derive mass-weighted Sersic fits: the mass-weighted sizes are ~41% smaller than their rest-frame $r$-band counterparts compared with an average of ~12% at z~0. We attribute this evolution to the evolution in the $M_{*}/L_{H_{160}}$ and colour gradient. Indeed, as expected, the ratio of mass-weighted to light-weighted size is correlated with the $M_{*}/L$ gradient, but is also mildly correlated with the mass surface density and mass-weighted size. The colour gradients $( abla_{z-H})$ are mostly negative, with a median value of $sim0.45$ mag dex$^{-1}$, twice the local value. The evolution is caused by an evolution in age gradients along the semi-major axis ($a$), with $ abla_{age} = d log(age) / d log(a)$ $sim-0.33$, while the survival of weaker colour gradients in old, local galaxies implies that metallicity gradients are also required, with $ abla_{Z} = d log(Z) / d log(a)$ $sim-0.2$. This is consistent with recent observational evidence for the inside-out growth of passive galaxies at high redshift, and favours a gradual mass growth mechanism, such as minor mergers.
We present results on the structural properties of massive passive galaxies in three clusters at $1.39<z<1.61$ from the KMOS Cluster Survey. We measure light-weighted and mass-weighted sizes from optical and near-infrared Hubble Space Telescope imaging and spatially resolved stellar mass maps. The rest-frame $R$-band sizes of these galaxies are a factor of $sim2-3$ smaller than their local counterparts. The slopes of the relation between the stellar mass and the light-weighted size are consistent with recent studies in clusters and the field. Their mass-weighted sizes are smaller than the rest frame $R$-band sizes, with an average mass-weighted to light-weighted size ratio that varies between $sim0.45$ and $0.8$ among the clusters. We find that the median light-weighted size of the passive galaxies in the two more evolved clusters is $sim24%$ larger than for field galaxies, independent of the use of circularized effective radii or semi-major axes. These two clusters also show a smaller size ratio than the less evolved cluster, which we investigate using color gradients to probe the underlying $M_{*}/L_{H_{160}}$ gradients. The median color gradients are $ abla{z-H} sim-0.4$ mag dex$^{-1}$, twice the local value. Using stellar populations models, these gradients are best reproduced by a combination of age and metallicity gradients. Our results favor the minor merger scenario as the dominant process responsible for the observed galaxy properties and the environmental differences at this redshift. The environmental differences support that clusters experience accelerated structural evolution compared to the field, likely via an epoch of enhanced minor merger activity during cluster assembly.
We present a multi-wavelength study of galaxy populations in the core of the massive, X-ray luminous cluster XMMU J2235 at z=1.39, based on VLT and HST optical and near-infrared photometry. Luminosity functions in the z, H, and Ks bands show a faint-end slope consistent with being flat, and a characteristic magnitude M* close to passive evolution predictions of M* of local massive clusters, with a formation redshift z>2. The color-magnitude and color-mass diagrams show evidence of a tight red sequence of massive galaxies, with overall old stellar populations, generally early-type morphology, typically showing early-type spectral features and rest-frame far-UV emission consistent with very low star formation rates (SFR<0.2Msun/yr). Star forming spectroscopic members, with SFRs of up to ~100Msun/yr, are all located at clustercentric distances >~250kpc, with the central cluster region already appearing effectively quenched. Massive galaxies in the core of this cluster appear to be in an advanced evolutionary stage in terms of both star formation and mass assembly. The high-mass end of the galaxy stellar mass function is essentially already in place, and the stellar mass fraction estimated within r500 (~1%, Kroupa IMF) is already similar to that of local massive clusters. On the other hand, morphological analysis of the massive red sequence galaxies suggests that they are smaller than similarly massive local early-types. While possibly affected by systematics and biases, this result might imply that, in spite of the overall early assembly of these sources, their evolution is not complete, and processes like minor (and likely dry) merging might still shape their structural properties to resemble those of their local counterparts, without substantially affecting their stellar mass or host stellar populations.[abridged]
In this paper, we use stacking analysis to trace the mass-growth, colour evolution, and structural evolution of present-day massive galaxies ($log(M_{*}/M_{odot})=11.5$) out to $z=5$. We utilize the exceptional depth and area of the latest UltraVISTA data release, combined with the depth and unparalleled seeing of CANDELS to gather a large, mass-selected sample of galaxies in the NIR (rest-frame optical to UV). Progenitors of present-day massive galaxies are identified via an evolving cumulative number density selection, which accounts for the effects of merging to correct for the systematic biases introduced using a fixed cumulative number density selection, and find progenitors grow in stellar mass by $approx1.5~mathrm{dex}$ since $z=5$. Using stacking, we analyze the structural parameters of the progenitors and find that most of the stellar mass content in the central regions was in place by $zsim2$, and while galaxies continue to assemble mass at all radii, the outskirts experience the largest fractional increase in stellar mass. However, we find evidence of significant stellar mass build up at $r<3~mathrm{kpc}$ beyond $z>4$ probing an era of significant mass assembly in the interiors of present day massive galaxies. We also compare mass assembly from progenitors in this study to the EAGLE simulation and find qualitatively similar assembly with $z$ at $r<3~mathrm{kpc}$. We identify $zsim1.5$ as a distinct epoch in the evolution of massive galaxies where progenitors transitioned from growing in mass and size primarily through in-situ star formation in disks to a period of efficient growth in $r_{e}$ consistent with the minor merger scenario.
We investigate the evolution of stellar population gradients from $z=2$ to $z=0$ in massive galaxies at large radii ($r > 2R_{mathrm{eff}}$) using ten cosmological zoom simulations of halos with $6 times 10^{12} M_{odot} < M_{mathrm{halo}} < 2 times 10^{13}M_{odot}$. The simulations follow metal cooling and enrichment from SNII, SNIa and AGB winds. We explore the differential impact of an empirical model for galactic winds that reproduces the mass-metallicity relation and its evolution with redshift. At larger radii the galaxies, for both models, become more dominated by stars accreted from satellite galaxies in major and minor mergers. In the wind model, fewer stars are accreted, but they are significantly more metal poor resulting in steep global metallicity ($langle abla Z_{mathrm{stars}} rangle= -0.35$ dex/dex) and color (e.g. $langle abla g-r rangle = -0.13$ dex/dex) gradients in agreement with observations. In contrast, colour and metallicity gradients of the models without winds are inconsistent with observations. Age gradients are in general mildly positive at $z=0$ ($langle abla Age_{mathrm{stars}} rangle= 0.04$ dex/dex) with significant differences between the models at higher redshift. We demonstrate that for the wind model, stellar accretion is steepening existing in-situ metallicity gradients by about 0.2 dex by the present day and helps to match observed gradients of massive early-type galaxies at large radii. Colour and metallicity gradients are significantly steeper for systems which have accreted stars in minor mergers, while galaxies with major mergers have relatively flat gradients, confirming previous results. This study highlights the importance of stellar accretion for stellar population properties of massive galaxies at large radii, which can provide important constraints for formation models.
We took spatially resolved slit FORS2 spectra of 19 cluster galaxies at z=1.4, and 8 additional field galaxies at 1<z<1.2 using the ESO Very Large Telescope. The targets were selected from previous spectroscopic and photometric campaigns. Our spectroscopy was complemented with HST-ACS imaging in the F775W and F850LP filters, which is mandatory to derive the galaxy structural parameters accurately. We analyzed the ionized gas kinematics by extracting rotation curves from the two-dimensional spectra. Taking into account all geometrical, observational, and instrumental effects, we used these rotation curves to derive the intrinsic maximum rotation velocity (Vmax). Vmax was robustly determined for 6 cluster galaxies and 3 field galaxies. Galaxies with sky contamination or insufficient spatial rotation curve extent were not included in our analysis. We compared our sample to the local B-band Tully-Fisher relation (TFR) and the local Velocity-Size relation (VSR), finding that cluster galaxies are on average 1.6 mags brighter and a factor 2-3 smaller. We tentatively divided our cluster galaxies by total mass (i.e., Vmax) to investigate a possible mass dependency in the environmental evolution of galaxies. The average deviation from the local B-band TFR is -0.7 mags for the high-mass subsample. This mild evolution may be driven by younger stellar populations of distant galaxies with respect to their local counterparts, and thus, an increasing luminosity is expected towards higher redshifts. However, the low-mass group is made of 3 highly overluminous galaxies with average TFR offsets of -2.4 mags. This deviation can no longer be explained by the gradual evolution of SP with lookback time and thus, we suspect that we see rather compact galaxies that got an enhancement of star formation during their infall towards the dense regions of the cluster due to interactions with the intracluster medium.