The Stellar Mass Function of Galaxies to
                    <i>z</i>
                     ~ 5 in the FORS Deep and GOODS-South Fields

Drory, Niv; Salvato, M.; Gabasch, A.; Bender, Ralf; Hopp, U.; Feulner, Georg; Pannella, M.

doi:10.1086/428044

Cited by 228 publications

(389 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The results of GALFORM have been compared to previous observational data by Bower et al who show good fits to the observed mass functions of Glazebrook et al (2004), Fontana et al (2004) and Drory et al (2005). However we note that the WIRDS results provide a much stronger constraint on the mass function over the 1 < z < 2 redshift range than these previous results.…”

Section: Comparison To Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 51%

The WIRCam Deep Survey

Bielby

Hudelot

McCracken

et al. 2012

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We present a new near-infrared imaging survey in the four CFHTLS deep fields: the WIRCam Deep Survey or "WIRDS". WIRDS comprises extremely deep, high quality (FWHM ∼ 0.6 ) J, H, and K s imaging covering a total effective area of 2.1 deg 2 and reaching AB 50% completeness limits of ≈24.5. We combine our images with the CFHTLS to create a unique eight-band ugrizJHK S photometric catalogues in the four CFHTLS deep fields; these four separate fields allow us to make a robust estimate of the effect of cosmic variance for all our measurements. We use these catalogues in combination with ≈9800 spectroscopic redshifts to estimate precise photometric redshifts (σ Δz/(1+z) 0.03 at i < 25), galaxy types, star-formation rates and stellar masses for a unique sample of ≈1.8 million galaxies. Our JHK s number counts are consistent with previous studies. We apply the "BzK" selection to our gzK filter set and find that the star forming BzK selection successfully selects 76% of star-forming galaxies in the redshift range 1.4 < z < 2.5 in our photometric catalogue, based on our photometric redshift measurement. Similarly the passive BzK selection returns 52% of the passive 1.4 < z < 2.5 population identified in the photometric catalogue. We present the mass functions of the total galaxy population as a function of redshift up to z = 2 and present fits using double Schechter functions. A mass-dependent evolution of the mass function is seen with the numbers of galaxies with masses of M 10 10.75 still evolving at z 1, but galaxies of higher mass reaching their present day numbers by z ∼ 0.8−1. This is consistent with the present picture of downsizing in galaxy evolution. We compare our results with the predictions of the GALFORM semi-analytical galaxy formation model and find that the simulations provide a relatively successful fit to the observed mass functions at intermediate masses (i.e. 10 log (M/M ) 11). However, as is common with semi-analytical predictions of the mass function, the GALFORM results under-predict the mass function at low masses (i.e. log (M/M ) 10), whilst the fit as a whole degrades beyond redshifts of z ∼ 1.2. All photometric catalogues and images are made publicly available from TERAPIX and CADC.

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Section: Comparison To Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 51%

The WIRCam Deep Survey

Bielby

Hudelot

McCracken

et al. 2012

A&A

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170

208

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“…Studies focused on field galaxies (Drory et al 2005;Gwyn & Hartwick 2005;Fontana et al 2006;Bundy et al 2006;Pozzetti et al 2007;Drory et al 2009;Baldry et al 2012), present the mass function for the global field galaxy population at different redshifts and obtain consistent results. Fontana et al (2004Fontana et al ( , 2006; Bundy et al (2006); Borch et al (2006); demonstrated that galaxies with M * ≥ 10 11 M exhibit relatively modest evolution in their total mass function from z = 1 to z = 0.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

The galaxy stellar mass function and its evolution with time show no dependence on global environment

Vulcani

Poggianti

Oemler

et al. 2013

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We present an analysis of the galaxy stellar mass function in different environments at intermediate redshift (0.3 ≤ z ≤ 0.8) for two mass-limited galaxy samples. We use the IMACS Cluster Building Survey (ICBS; M * ≥ 10 10.5 M ) to study cluster, group and field galaxies at z = 0.3-0.45, and the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS; M * ≥ 10 10.2 M ) to investigate cluster and group galaxies at z = 0.4-0.8. Our analysis thus includes galaxies with masses reaching just below that of the Milky Way. Excluding the brightest cluster galaxies, we show that the shape of the mass distribution does not seem to depend on global environment, Our two main results are: (1) Galaxies in the virialised regions of clusters, in groups, and in the field follow similar mass distributions. (2) Comparing the ICBS and EDisCS mass functions to mass functions in the local universe, we detect evolution from z ∼ 0.4-0.6 to z ∼ 0.07 in the sense that the population of low-mass galaxies has grown with time with respect to the population of massive galaxies. This evolution is independent of environment, i.e., the same for clusters and the field. Furthermore, considering only cluster galaxies, we find that no differences can be detected in their mass functions either within the virialised regions, or when we compare galaxies inside and outside the virial radius. Finally, we find that red and blue galaxies have different mass functions. However, the shapes of the mass functions of blue and red galaxies do not seem to depend on their environment (clusters groups and the field).

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“…The stronger increase in the number density of low/intermediate-mass passive galaxies with respect to massive and passive galaxies is a clear indication of mass-assembly "downsizing" (Fontana et al 2004;Drory et al 2005;Bundy et al 2006;Cimatti et al 2006;Thomas et al 2010;Pozzetti et al 2010;Moresco et al 2010), with more massive galaxies having assembled their mass at higher redshifts and already being in place at z ∼ 1. The result of this analysis is in agreement with many other works: Scarlata et al (2007b) studying ETGs in the COSMOS field found no traces of significant evolution in the number density of bright (∼L > 2.5L * ) ETGs, with a maximum increase of ∼30% from z ∼ 0.7 to z ∼ 0 when allowing for different SFHs and cosmic variance; Pozzetti et al (2010) found an almost negligible evolution in the number density of quiescent galaxies in zCOSMOS-10k sample, <0.1 dex between z = 0.85 and z = 0.25 for log (M/M ) > 11−11.5; from the analysis of the UltraVISTA-DR1 sample Ilbert et al (2013) found that massive galaxies (log (M/M ) > 11.2) do not show any significant evolution between 0.8 < z < 1.1 and 0.2 < z < 0.5, while low-mass ones (log (M/M ) ∼ 9.5) increase in number density by a factor >5.…”

Section: Number Densitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Moresco¹,

Pozzetti

Cimatti³

et al. 2013

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Aims. We present the analysis of photometric, spectroscopic, and morphological properties for differently selected samples of passive galaxies up to z = 1 extracted from the zCOSMOS-20k spectroscopic survey. This analysis intends to explore the dependence of galaxy properties on the selection criterion adopted, study the degree of contamination due to star-forming outliers, and provide a comparison between different commonly used selection criteria. This work is a first step to fully investigating the selection effects of passive galaxies for future massive surveys such as Euclid. Methods. We extracted from the zCOSMOS-20k catalog six different samples of passive galaxies, based on morphology (3336 "morphological" early-type galaxies), optical colors (4889 "red-sequence" galaxies and 4882 "red UVJ" galaxies), specific star-formation rate (2937 "quiescent" galaxies), a best fit to the observed spectral energy distribution (2603 "red SED" galaxies), and a criterion that combines morphological, spectroscopic, and photometric information (1530 "red & passive early-type galaxies"). For all the samples, we studied optical and infrared colors, morphological properties, specific star-formation rates (SFRs), and the equivalent widths of the residual emission lines; this analysis was performed as a function of redshift and stellar mass to inspect further possible dependencies. Results. We find that each passive galaxy sample displays a certain level of contamination due to blue/star-forming/nonpassive outliers. The morphological sample is the one that presents the higher percentage of contamination, with ∼12−65% (depending on the mass range) of galaxies not located in the red sequence, ∼25−80% of galaxies with a specific SFR up to ∼25 times higher than the adopted definition of passive, and significant emission lines found in the median stacked spectra, at least for log (M/M ) < 10.25. The red & passive ETGs sample is the purest, with a percentage of contamination in color <10% for stellar masses log (M/M ) > 10.25, very limited tails in sSFR, a median value ∼20% higher than the chosen passive cut, and equivalent widths of emission lines mostly compatible with no star-formation activity. However, it is also the less economic criterion in terms of information used. Among the other criteria, we found that the best performing are the red SED and the quiescent ones, providing a percentage of contamination only slightly higher than the red & passive ETGs criterion (on average of a factor of ∼2) but with absolute values of the properties of contaminants still compatible with a red, passively evolving population. We also find a strong dependence of the contamination on the stellar mass and conclude that, almost irrespective of the adopted selection criteria, a cut at log (M/M ) > 10.75 provides a significantly purer sample in terms of star-forming contaminants. By studying the restframe color-mass and color−color diagrams, we provided two revised definitions of passive galaxies based on these criteria that better reprodu...

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The Stellar Mass Function of Galaxies to z ~ 5 in the FORS Deep and GOODS-South Fields

Cited by 228 publications

References 27 publications

The WIRCam Deep Survey

The WIRCam Deep Survey

The galaxy stellar mass function and its evolution with time show no dependence on global environment

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