No Arabic abstract
A photometric study of 22 disk galaxies at redshifs z=0.5-2.6 is conducted, using deep NICMOS J and H band and STIS open mode observations of the HDF-S NICMOS parallel field. Rest-frame B-profiles and (U-V) color profiles are constructed. A number of disks show steeper decrease of luminosity than exponential, referring to disk truncation. Shape of the luminosity profiles does not vary with redshift, but galactic sizes decrease significantly. (U-V) colors and color gradients suggest more intense and centrally concentrated star formation at earlier epochs. On the basis of (U-V) color and chemical evolution models, the disks at z~2.5 have formed between z=3.5-7. The studied parameters are idependent of absolute B luminosity within the sample.
We have obtained near-infrared (1.6 micron) images of 11 powerful 3CR radio galaxies at redshifts 0.8 < z < 1.8 using NICMOS on board HST. The high angular resolution permits a detailed study of galaxy morphology in these systems at rest-frame optical wavelengths, where starlight dominates over the extended, aligned UV continuum. The NICMOS morphologies are mostly symmetric and are consistent with dynamically relaxed, elliptical host galaxies dominated by a red, mature stellar population. The aligned structures are sometimes faintly visible, and nuclear point sources may be present in a few cases which manifest the ``unveiled AGN that is obscured from view at optical wavelengths. Our observations are consistent with the hypothesis that the host galaxies of z ~ 1-2 radio galaxies are similar to modern-day gE galaxies. Their sizes are typical of gE galaxies but smaller than present-day cD and brightest cluster galaxies, and their surface brightnesses are higher, as expected given simple luminosity evolution.
We use ~88 arcmin**2 of deep (>~26.5 mag at 5 sigma) NICMOS data over the two GOODS fields and the HDF South to conduct a search for bright z>~7 galaxy candidates. This search takes advantage of an efficient preselection over 58 arcmin**2 of NICMOS H-band data where only plausible z>~7 candidates are followed up with NICMOS J-band observations. ~248 arcmin**2 of deep ground-based near-infrared data (>~25.5 mag, 5 sigma) is also considered in the search. In total, we report 15 z-dropout candidates over this area -- 7 of which are new to these search fields. Two possible z~9 J-dropout candidates are also found, but seem unlikely to correspond to z~9 galaxies. The present z~9 search is used to set upper limits on the prevalence of such sources. Rigorous testing is undertaken to establish the level of contamination of our selections by photometric scatter, low mass stars, supernovae (SNe), and spurious sources. The estimated contamination rate of our z~7 selection is ~24%. Through careful simulations, the effective volume available to our z>~7 selections is estimated and used to establish constraints on the volume density of luminous (L*(z=3), or -21 mag) galaxies from these searches. We find that the volume density of luminous star-forming galaxies at z~7 is 13_{-5}^{+8}x lower than at z~4 and >25x lower (1 sigma) at z~9 than at z~4. This is the most stringent constraint yet available on the volume density of >~L* galaxies at z~9. The present wide-area, multi-field search limits cosmic variance to <20%. The evolution we find at the bright end of the UV LF is similar to that found from recent Subaru Suprime-Cam, HAWK-I or ERS WFC3/IR searches. The present paper also includes a complete summary of our final z~7 z-dropout sample (18 candidates) identified from all NICMOS observations to date (over the two GOODS fields, the HUDF, galaxy clusters).
A substantial population of high redshift early-type galaxies is detected in very deep UBVRIJHK images towards the HDF-South. Four elliptical profile galaxies are identified in the redshift range z=1-2, all with very red SEDs, implying ages of >2 Gyrs for standard passive evolution. We also find later type IR-luminous galaxies at similarly high redshift, (10 objects with z>1, H<25), whose weak UV emission implies single burst ages of >1 Gyr. The number and luminosity-densities of these galaxies are comparable with the local E/SO-Sbc populations for Omega_m>0.2, and in the absence of a significant cosmological constant, we infer that the major fraction of luminous Hubble-sequence galaxies have evolved little since z~2. A highly complete photometric redshift distribution is constructed to H=25 (69 galaxies) showing a broad spread of redshift, peaking at z~1.5, in reasonable agreement with some analyses of the HDF. Five `dropout galaxies are detected at z~3.8, which are compact in the IR, ~0.5 kpc/h at rest 3500AA. No example of a blue IR luminous elliptical is found, restricting the star-formation epoch of ellipticals to z>10 for a standard IMF and modest extinction.
We present deep B- and R-band surface photometry for a sample of 21 galaxies with morphological types between S0 and Sab. We present radial profiles of surface brightness, colour, ellipticity, position angle and deviations of axisymmetry for all galaxies, as well as isophotal and effective radii and total magnitudes. We have decomposed the images into contributions from a spheroidal bulge and a flat disk, using an interactive, 2D decomposition technique. We study in detail the relations between various bulge and disk parameters. In particular, we find that the bulges of our galaxies have surface brightness profiles ranging from exponential to De Vaucouleurs, with the average value of the Sersic shape parameter n being 2.5. In agreement with previous studies, we find that the shape of the bulge intensity distribution depends on luminosity, with the more luminous bulges having more centrally peaked light profiles. By comparing the ellipticity of the isophotes in the bulges to those in the outer, disk dominated regions, we are able to derive the intrinsic axis ratio q_b of the bulges. The average axis ratio is 0.55, with an rms spread of 0.12. None of the bulges in our sample is spherical, whereas in some cases, the bulges can be as flat as q_b = 0.3 - 0.4. The bulge flattening seems to be weakly coupled to luminosity, more luminous bulges being on average slightly more flattened than their lower-luminosity counterparts. Our finding that most bulges are significantly flattened and have an intensity profile shallower than R^{1/4} suggests that `pseudobulges, formed from disk material by secular processes, do not only occur in late-type spiral galaxies, but are a common feature in early-type disk galaxies as well. (abridged)
We present deep, high angular-resolution HST/NICMOS imaging in the Hubble Deep Field South (HDF-S), focusing on a subset of 14 Distant Red Galaxies (DRGs) at z ~ 2.5 galaxies that have been pre-selected to have J-K > 2.3. We find a clear trend between the rest-frame optical sizes of these sources and their luminosity-weighted stellar ages as inferred from their broad-band spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Galaxies whose SEDs are consistent with being dusty and actively star forming generally show extended morphologies in the NICMOS images (r_e >~ 2 kpc), while the 5 sources which are not vigorously forming stars are extremely compact (r_e <~ 1 kpc). This trend suggests a direct link between the mean ages of the stars and the size and density of the galaxies and supports the conjecture that early events quench star-formation and leave compact remnants. Furthermore, the compact galaxies have stellar surface mass densities which exceed those of local galaxies by more than an order of magnitude. The existence of such massive dense galaxies presents a problem for models of early-type galaxy formation and evolution. Larger samples of DRGs and higher spatial resolution imaging will allow us to determine the universality of the results presented here for a small sample.