IRAC Mid-Infrared Imaging of the Hubble Deep Field-South: Star Formation Histories and Stellar Masses of Red Galaxies at
                    <i>z</i>
                     &gt; 2

We explore the buildup of stellar mass in galaxies over the wide redshift range by studying the 0.4 ! z ! 5.0 evolution of the specific star formation rate (SSFR), defined as the star formation rate per unit stellar mass, as a function of stellar mass and age. Our work is based on a combined sample of ∼9000 galaxies from the FORS Deep Field and the GOODS-S field, providing high statistical accuracy and relative insensitivity against cosmic variance. As at lower redshifts, we find that lower mass galaxies show higher SSFRs than higher mass galaxies, although highly obscured galaxies remain undetected in our sample. Furthermore, the highest mass galaxies contain the oldest stellar populations at all redshifts, in principle agreement with the existence of evolved, massive galaxies at . It is remarkable, however, that this trend continues to very high redshifts of . We also 1 ! z ! 3 z ∼ 4 show that with increasing redshift, the SSFR for massive galaxies increases by a factor of ∼10, reaching the era of their formation at and beyond. These findings can be interpreted as evidence for an early epoch of star z ∼ 2 formation in the most massive galaxies and for ongoing star formation activity in lower mass galaxies.

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“…z ! 2 Saracco et al 2005;Longhetti et al 2005) and among the distant red galaxies at (Labbé et al 2005). Apparently 2 !…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Specific Star Formation Rates to Redshift 5 from the FORS Deep Field and the GOODS-S Field

Feulner

Gabasch

Salvato

et al. 2005

ApJ

150

151

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“…As several other authors (Fontana et al 2004;Drory et al 2004;Labbé et al 2005) have noted, IR-selected samples are not equivalent to mass-selected samples. At any redshift, galaxies detected above the sample magnitude limit can have a fairly wide range of M /L ratios, depending on their spectral properties, ages, dust extinction, and metallicities.…”

Section: Incompleteness Effects and Mass Selection Criteriamentioning

confidence: 88%

Searching for massive galaxies at z ≥ 3.5 in GOODS-North

Mancini

Matute

Cimatti

et al. 2009

A&A

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Aims. We constrain the space density and properties of massive galaxy candidates at redshifts of z ≥ 3.5 in the Great Observatories Origin Deep Survey North (GOODS-N) field. By selecting sources in the Spitzer + IRAC bands, a sample highly complete in stellarmass is assembled, including massive galaxies that are very faint in the optical/near-IR bands and would be missed by samples selected at shorter wavelengths. Methods. The z ≥ 3.5 sample was selected to m AB = 23 mag at 4.5 μm using photometric redshifts obtained by fitting the galaxies spectral energy distribution at optical, near-IR bands, and IRAC bands. We also require that the brightest band (in AB scale) in which candidates are detected is the IRAC 8.0 μm band to ensure that the near-IR 1.6 μm (rest-frame) peak is falling in or beyond this band. Results. We found 53 z ≥ 3.5 candidates, of masses in the range M ∼ 10 10 −10 11 M . At least ∼81% of these galaxies are missed by traditional Lyman Break selection methods based on ultraviolet light. Spitzer + MIPS emission is detected for 60% of the sample of z ≥ 3.5 galaxy candidates. Although in some cases this might suggest a residual contamination from lower redshift starforming galaxies or Active Galactic Nuclei, 37% of these objects are also detected in the sub-mm/mm bands in SCUBA, AzTEC, and MAMBO surveys, and have properties fully consistent with vigorous starburst galaxies at z ≥ 3.5. The comoving number density of galaxies with stellar masses of above 5 × 10 10 M (a reasonable stellar-mass completeness limit for our sample) is 2.6 × 10 −5 Mpc −3 (using the volume within 3.5 < z < 5), and the corresponding stellar mass density is ∼(2.9 ± 1.5) × 10 6 M Mpc −3 , or about 3% of the local density above the same stellar mass limit. For the subsample of MIPS-undetected galaxies, we measure a number density of ∼0.97 × 10 −5 Mpc −3 and a stellar mass density of ∼(1.15 ± 0.7) × 10 6 M Mpc −3 . Even in the unlikely case that these are all truly quiescent galaxies, this would imply an increase in the space density of passive galaxies by a factor of ∼15 between z ∼ 4 and z = 2, and by ∼100 to z = 0.

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“…We classify galaxies as either actively star-forming or quiescent using the UVJ color-color diagram (Labbé et al 2005;Wuyts et al 2007;Williams et al 2009). The rest-frame (U − V) and (V − J) colors are estimated using EAZY (Section 2.2).…”

Section: Sample Selection and Stackingmentioning

confidence: 99%

THE SFR–M_* RELATION AND EMPIRICAL STAR FORMATION HISTORIES FROM ZFOURGE AT 0.5 < z < 4*

Tomczak

Quadri

Tran

et al. 2016

ApJ

Self Cite

310

492

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We explore star formation histories (SFHs) of galaxies based on the evolution of the star formation rate stellar mass relation (SFR-M * ). Using data from the FourStar Galaxy Evolution Survey (ZFOURGE) in combination with far-IR imaging from the Spitzer and Herschel observatories we measure the SFR-M * relation at 0.5 < z < 4. Similar to recent works we find that the average infrared spectral energy distributions of galaxies are roughly consistent with a single infrared template across a broad range of redshifts and stellar masses, with evidence for only weak deviations. We find that the SFR-M * relation is not consistent with a single power law of the form M SFR * µ a at any redshift; it has a power law slope of α ∼ 1 at low masses, and becomes shallower above a turnover mass (M 0 ) that ranges from 10 9.5 to 10 10.8 M e , with evidence that M 0 increases with redshift. We compare our measurements to results from state-of-the-art cosmological simulations, and find general agreement in the slope of the SFR-M * relation albeit with systematic offsets. We use the evolving SFR-M * sequence to generate SFHs, finding that typical SFRs of individual galaxies rise at early times and decline after reaching a peak. This peak occurs earlier for more massive galaxies. We integrate these SFHs to generate mass growth histories and compare to the implied mass growth from the evolution of the stellar mass function (SMF). We find that these two estimates are in broad qualitative agreement, but that there is room for improvement at a more detailed level. At early times the SFHs suggest mass growth rates that are as much as 10× higher than inferred from the SMF. However, at later times the SFHs under-predict the inferred evolution, as is expected in the case of additional growth due to mergers.

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IRAC Mid-Infrared Imaging of the Hubble Deep Field-South: Star Formation Histories and Stellar Masses of Red Galaxies at z > 2

Cited by 350 publications

References 22 publications

Specific Star Formation Rates to Redshift 5 from the FORS Deep Field and the GOODS-S Field

Specific Star Formation Rates to Redshift 5 from the FORS Deep Field and the GOODS-S Field

Searching for massive galaxies at z ≥ 3.5 in GOODS-North

THE SFR–M_* RELATION AND EMPIRICAL STAR FORMATION HISTORIES FROM ZFOURGE AT 0.5 < z < 4*

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IRAC Mid-Infrared Imaging of the Hubble Deep Field-South: Star Formation Histories and Stellar Masses of Red Galaxies at z > 2

Cited by 350 publications

References 22 publications

Specific Star Formation Rates to Redshift 5 from the FORS Deep Field and the GOODS-S Field

Specific Star Formation Rates to Redshift 5 from the FORS Deep Field and the GOODS-S Field

Searching for massive galaxies at z ≥ 3.5 in GOODS-North

THE SFR–M* RELATION AND EMPIRICAL STAR FORMATION HISTORIES FROM ZFOURGE AT 0.5 < z < 4*

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THE SFR–M_* RELATION AND EMPIRICAL STAR FORMATION HISTORIES FROM ZFOURGE AT 0.5 < z < 4*