The DEEP3 Galaxy Redshift Survey: the impact of environment on the size evolution of massive early-type galaxies at intermediate redshift

Creators: Cooper, Michael C.; Griffith, Roger L.; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Coil, Alison L.; Davis, Marc; Dutton, Aaron A.; Faber, S. M.; Guhathakurta, Puragra; Koo, David C.; Lotz, Jennifer M.; Weiner, Benjamin J.; Willmer, Christopher N. A.; Yan, Renbin

Abstract

Using data drawn from the DEEP2 and DEEP3 Galaxy Redshift Surveys, we investigate the relationship between the environment and the structure of galaxies residing on the red sequence at intermediate redshift. Within the massive (10 < log_(10)(M_(★)/h^(−2) M_⊙) < 11) early-type population at 0.4 < z < 1.2, we find a significant correlation between local galaxy overdensity (or environment) and galaxy size, such that early-type systems in higher density regions tend to have larger effective radii (by ∼0.5 h^(−1) kpc or 25 per cent larger) than their counterparts of equal stellar mass and Sérsic index in lower density environments. This observed size–density relation is consistent with a model of galaxy formation in which the evolution of early-type systems at z < 2 is accelerated in high-density environments such as groups and clusters and in which dry, minor mergers (versus mechanisms such as quasar feedback) play a central role in the structural evolution of the massive, early-type galaxy population.

Additional Information

© 2011 The Authors. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2011 RAS. Accepted 2011 October 3. Received 2011 September 25; in original form 2011 August 16. Article first published online: 18 Nov. 2011. MCC acknowledges support for this work provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant #HF-51269.01-A, awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555. This work was also supported in part by NSF grants AST-0507428, AST-0507483, AST-0071048, AST-0071198, AST-0808133 and AST-0806732 as well as Hubble Space Telescope Archival grant HST-AR-10947.01 and NASA grant HST-G0-10134.13-A. Additional support was provided by NASA through the Spitzer Space Telescope Fellowship Program. MCC acknowledges support from the Southern California Center for Galaxy Evolution, a multicampus research programme funded by the University of California Office of Research. MCC thanks Mike Boylan-Kolchin for helpful discussions in preparing this manuscript and also thanks Greg Wirth and the entire Keck Observatory staff for their help in the acquisition of the DEEP2 and DEEP3 Keck/DEIMOS data. Finally, MCC thanks the anonymous referee for their insightful comments and suggestions that improved this work. We also wish to recognize and acknowledge the highly significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Mauna Kea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community. It is a privilege to be given the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. Facilities: Keck:II (DEIMOS), HST (ACS) Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W.M. Keck Foundation. Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained from the data archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.

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