The Morphologies of Massive Galaxies at 1 < z < 3 in the CANDELS-UDS Field
Abstract
We have used high-resolution, HST WFC3/IR, near-infrared imaging to conduct a detailed bulge-disk decomposition of the morphologies of ~200 of the most massive (M_star > 10^11 M_solar) galaxies at 1<z<3 in the CANDELS-UDS field. We find that, while such massive galaxies at low redshift are generally bulge-dominated, at redshifts 1<z<2 they are predominantly mixed bulge+disk systems, and by z>2 they are mostly disk-dominated. Interestingly, we find that while most of the quiescent galaxies are bulge-dominated, a significant fraction (25-40%) of the most quiescent galaxies, have disk-dominated morphologies. Thus, our results suggest that the physical mechanisms which quench star-formation activity are not simply connected to those responsible for the morphological transformation of massive galaxies.
- Publication:
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arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- January 2013
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1301.6373
- Bibcode:
- 2013arXiv1301.6373B
- Keywords:
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- Astrophysics - Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Contributed article (4 pages, 2 figures), IAU Symposium 295 on "The intriguing life of massive galaxies", to appear in the proceedings of the IAU XXVIII General Assembly, Beijing, 2012, (Eds: Daniel Thomas, Anna Pasquali, Ignacio Ferreras)
