No Arabic abstract
We study the clustering of galaxies as function of luminosity and redshift in the range $0.35 < z < 1.25$ using data from the Advanced Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical (ALHAMBRA) survey. The ALHAMBRA data used in this work cover $2.38 mathrm{deg}^2$ in 7 independent fields, after applying a detailed angular selection mask, with accurate photometric redshifts, $sigma_z lesssim 0.014 (1+z)$, down to $I_{rm AB} < 24$. Given the depth of the survey, we select samples in $B$-band luminosity down to $L^{rm th} simeq 0.16 L^{*}$ at $z = 0.9$. We measure the real-space clustering using the projected correlation function, accounting for photometric redshifts uncertainties. We infer the galaxy bias, and study its evolution with luminosity. We study the effect of sample variance, and confirm earlier results that the COSMOS and ELAIS-N1 fields are dominated by the presence of large structures. For the intermediate and bright samples, $L^{rm med} gtrsim 0.6L^{*}$, we obtain a strong dependence of bias on luminosity, in agreement with previous results at similar redshift. We are able to extend this study to fainter luminosities, where we obtain an almost flat relation, similar to that observed at low redshift. Regarding the evolution of bias with redshift, our results suggest that the different galaxy populations studied reside in haloes covering a range in mass between $log_{10}[M_{rm h}/(h^{-1}mathrm{M}_{odot})] gtrsim 11.5$ for samples with $L^{rm med} simeq 0.3 L^{*}$ and $log_{10}[M_{rm h}/(h^{-1}mathrm{M}_{odot})] gtrsim 13.0$ for samples with $L^{rm med} simeq 2 L^{*}$, with typical occupation numbers in the range of $sim 1 - 3$ galaxies per halo.
We model the evolution of the mean galaxy occupation of dark-matter halos over the range $0.1<z<1.3$, using the data from the VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey (VVDS). The galaxy projected correlation function $w_p(r_p)$ was computed for a set of luminosity-limited subsamples and fits to its shape were obtained using two variants of Halo Occupation Distribution models. These provide us with a set of best-fitting parameters, from which we obtain the average mass of a halo and average number of galaxies per halo. We find that after accounting for the evolution in luminosity and assuming that we are largely following the same population, the underlying dark matter halo shows a growth in mass with decreasing redshift as expected in a hierarchical structure formation scenario. Using two different HOD models, we see that the halo mass grows by 90% over the redshift interval z=[0.5,1.0]. This is the first time the evolution in halo mass at high redshifts has been obtained from a single data survey and it follows the simple form seen in N-body simulations with $M(z) = M_0 e^{-beta z}$, and $beta = 1.3 pm 0.30$. This provides evidence for a rapid accretion phase of massive halos having a present-day mass $M_0 sim 10^{13.5} h^{-1} M_odot$, with a $m > 0.1 M_0$ merger event occuring between redshifts of 0.5 and 1.0. Futhermore, we find that more luminous galaxies are found to occupy more massive halos irrespectively of the redshift. Finally, the average number of galaxies per halo shows little increase from redshift z$sim$ 1.0 to z$sim$ 0.5, with a sharp increase by a factor $sim$3 from z$sim$ 0.5 to z$sim$ 0.1, likely due to the dynamical friction of subhalos within their host halos.
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 present results of a statistical study of the cosmic evolution of the mass dependent major-merger rate since z=1. A stellar mass limited sample of close major-merger pairs (the CPAIR sample) was selected from the archive of the COSMOS survey. Pair fractions at different redshifts derived using the CPAIR sample and a local K-band selected pair sample show no significant variations with stellar mass. The pair fraction exhibits moderately strong cosmic evolution, with the best-fitting evolutionary index m=2.2+-0.2. The best-fitting function for the merger rate implies that galaxies with stellar mass between 1E+10 -- 3E+11 M_sun have undergone 0.5 -- 1.5 major-mergers since z=1. Our results show that, for massive galaxies at z<1, major mergers involving star forming galaxies (i.e. wet and mixed mergers) can account for the formation of both ellipticals and red quiescent galaxies (RQGs). On the other hand, major mergers cannot be responsible for the formation of most low mass ellipticals and RQGs. Our quantitative estimates indicate that major mergers have significant impact on the stellar mass assembly of the most massive galaxies, but for less massive galaxies the stellar mass assembly is dominated by the star formation. Comparison with the mass dependent (U)LIRG rates suggests that the frequency of major-merger events is comparable to or higher than that of (U)LIRGs.
We take advantage of the exceptional photometric coverage provided by the combination of GALEX data in the UV and the ALHAMBRA survey in the optical and near-IR to analyze the physical properties of a sample of 1225 GALEX-selected Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) at $0.8 lesssim z lesssim 1.2$ located in the COSMOS field. This is the largest sample of LBGs studied at that redshift range so far. According to a spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting with synthetic stellar population templates, we find that LBGs at $z sim 1$ are mostly young galaxies with a median age of 341 Myr and have intermediate dust attenuation, $ < E_s (B-V) > sim 0.20$. Due to their selection criterion, LBGs at $z sim 1$ are UV-bright galaxies and have high dust-corrected total SFR, with a median value of 16.9 $M_odot {rm yr}^{-1}$. Their median stellar mass is $log{left(M_*/M_odot right)} = 9.74$. We obtain that the dust-corrected total SFR of LBGs increases with stellar mass and the specific SFR is lower for more massive galaxies. Only 2% of the galaxies selected through the Lyman break criterion have an AGN nature. LBGs at $z sim 1$ are mostly located over the blue cloud of the color-magnitude diagram of galaxies at their redshift, with only the oldest and/or the dustiest deviating towards the green valley and red sequence. Morphologically, 69% of LBGs are disk-like galaxies, with the fraction of interacting, compact, or irregular systems being much lower, below 12%. LBGs have a median effective radius of 2.5 kpc and bigger galaxies have higher total SFR and stellar mass. Comparing to their high-redshift analogues, we find evidence that LBGs at lower redshifts are bigger, redder in the UV continuum, and have a major presence of older stellar populations in their SEDs. However, we do not find significant difference in the distributions of stellar mass or dust attenuation.
A large fraction of the stellar mass in galaxy clusters is thought to be contained in the diffuse low surface brightness intracluster light (ICL). Being bound to the gravitational potential of the cluster rather than any individual galaxy, the ICL contains much information about the evolution of its host cluster and the interactions between the galaxies within. However due its low surface brightness it is notoriously difficult to study. We present the first detection and measurement of the flux contained in the ICL at z~1. We find that the fraction of the total cluster light contained in the ICL may have increased by factors of 2-4 since z~1, in contrast to recent findings for the lack of mass and scale size evolution found for brightest cluster galaxies. Our results suggest that late time buildup in cluster cores may occur more through stripping than merging and we discuss the implications of our results for hierarchical simulations.