A surprisingly high pair fraction for extremely massive galaxies at z ~ 3 in the GOODS NICMOS survey
A surprisingly high pair fraction for extremely massive galaxies at z ~ 3 in the GOODS NICMOS survey
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GOODS NICMOS 巡天中 z ~ 3 处极大质量星系的对比例高得惊人
DOI:
10.1111/j.1745-3933.2008.00608.x
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发表时间:
2009
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通讯作者:
Bluck A
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文献类型:
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作者:
Bluck A
We calculate the major pair fraction and derive the major merger fraction and rate for 82 massive (M*> 1011M⊙) galaxies at 1.7 <z< 3.0 utilizing deepHubble Space TelescopeNICMOS data taken in the GOODS north and south fields. For the first time, our NICMOS data provide imaging with sufficient angular resolution and depth to collate a sufficiently large sample of massive galaxies atz> 1.5 to reliably measure their pair fraction history. We find strong evidence that the pair fraction of massive galaxies evolves with redshift. We calculate a pair fraction offm= 0.29 ± 0.06 for our whole sample at 1.7 <z< 3.0. Specifically, we fit a power-law function of the formfm=f0(1 +z)mto a combined sample of low-redshift data from and recently acquired high-redshift data from the GOODS NICMOS survey. We find a best fit to the free parameters off0= 0.008 ± 0.003 andm= 3.0 ± 0.4. We go on to fit a theoretically motivated Press–Schechter curve to this data. This Press–Schechter fit, and the data, shows no sign of levelling off or turning over, implying that the merger fraction of massive galaxies continues to rise with redshift out toz∼ 3. Since previous work has established that the merger fraction for lower mass galaxies turns over atz∼ 1.5–2.0, this is evidence that higher mass galaxies experience more mergers earlier than their lower mass counterparts, i.e. a galaxy assembly downsizing. Finally, we calculate a merger rate atz= 2.6 of ℜ < 5 × 105Gpc-3Gyr-1, which experiences no significant change to ℜ < 1.2 × 105Gpc-3Gyr-1atz= 0.5. This corresponds to an averageM*> 1011M⊙galaxy experiencing 1.7 ± 0.5 mergers betweenz= 3 and 0.
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发表时间:
2008
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作者:
S. Wuyts;I. Labbé;N. F. Schreiber;M. Franx;G. Rudnick;G. Brammer;P. V. Dokkum
通讯作者:
P. V. Dokkum
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1990
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作者:
R. Carlberg
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R. Carlberg
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发表时间:
2005
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作者:
C. Conselice
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C. Conselice