Quantitative measure of evolution of bright cluster galaxies at moderate redshifts

Abstract

Using archival data from the Hubble Space Telescope, we study the quantitative morphological evolution of spectroscopically confirmed bright galaxies in the core regions of nine clusters ranging in redshift from z = 0.31 to 0.84. We use morphological parameters derived from two-dimensional bulge-disc decomposition to study the evolution. We find an increase in the mean bulge-to-total luminosity ratio as the Universe evolves. We also find a corresponding increase in the fraction of early-type galaxies and in the mean Sérsic index. We discuss these results and their implications to physical mechanisms for evolution of galaxy morphology.