ZFOURGE/CANDELS: On the Evolution of M* Galaxy Progenitors from z = 3 to 0.5
Morrison, G.; Dickinson, M.; Inami, H.; Ferguson, H. C.; Finkelstein, S. L.; Papovich, C.; Faber, S. M.; van Dokkum, P.; Glazebrook, K.; Kacprzak, G. G.; Koekemoer, A.; Labbé, I.; Quadri, R.; Tilvi, V.; Behroozi, P.; Bell, E. F.; Spitler, L.; Straatman, C. M. S.; Tran, K. -V.; Cowley, M.; Davé, R.; Dekel, A.; Gawiser, E.; Kawinwanichakij, L.; Kocevski, D.; Koo, D. C.; Kurczynski, P.; Lotz, J. M.; Lu, Y.; Lucas, R. A.; McIntosh, D.; Mehrtens, N.; Mobasher, B.; Monson, A.; Nanayakkara, T.; Persson, S. E.; Salmon, B.; Simons, R.; Tomczak, A.; Weiner, B.; Willner, S. P.
United States, Netherlands, Australia, South Africa, Israel, France
Abstract
Galaxies with stellar masses near M* contain the majority of stellar mass in the universe, and are therefore of special interest in the study of galaxy evolution. The Milky Way (MW) and Andromeda (M31) have present-day stellar masses near M*, at 5 × 1010 M ⊙ (defined here to be MW-mass) and 1011 M ⊙ (defined to be M31-mass). We study the typical progenitors of these galaxies using the FOURSTAR Galaxy Evolution Survey (ZFOURGE). ZFOURGE is a deep medium-band near-IR imaging survey, which is sensitive to the progenitors of these galaxies out to z ~ 3. We use abundance-matching techniques to identify the main progenitors of these galaxies at higher redshifts. We measure the evolution in the stellar mass, rest-frame colors, morphologies, far-IR luminosities, and star formation rates, combining our deep multiwavelength imaging with near-IR Hubble Space Telescope imaging from Cosmic Near-IR Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS), and Spitzer and Herschel far-IR imaging from Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey-Herschel and CANDELS-Herschel. The typical MW-mass and M31-mass progenitors passed through the same evolution stages, evolving from blue, star-forming disk galaxies at the earliest stages to redder dust-obscured IR-luminous galaxies in intermediate stages and to red, more quiescent galaxies at their latest stages. The progenitors of the MW-mass galaxies reached each evolutionary stage at later times (lower redshifts) and with stellar masses that are a factor of two to three lower than the progenitors of the M31-mass galaxies. The process driving this evolution, including the suppression of star formation in present-day M* galaxies, requires an evolving stellar-mass/halo-mass ratio and/or evolving halo-mass threshold for quiescent galaxies. The effective size and SFRs imply that the baryonic cold-gas fractions drop as galaxies evolve from high redshift to z ~ 0 and are strongly anticorrelated with an increase in the Sérsic index. Therefore, the growth of galaxy bulges in M* galaxies corresponds to a rapid decline in the galaxy gas fractions and/or a decrease in the star formation efficiency.
This paper contains data gathered with the 6.5 m Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile.