MOIRCS DEEP SURVEY. IV. EVOLUTION OF GALAXY STELLAR MASS FUNCTION BACK TOz∼ 3
- 21 August 2009
- journal article
- Published by American Astronomical Society in The Astrophysical Journal
- Vol. 702 (2), 1393-1412
- https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/702/2/1393
Abstract
We use very deep near-infrared (NIR) imaging data obtained in MOIRCS Deep Survey (MODS) to investigate the evolution of the galaxy stellar mass function back to z ~ 3. The MODS data reach J = 24.2, H = 23.1, and K = 23.1 (5σ, Vega magnitude) over 103 arcmin2 (wide) and J = 25.1, H = 23.7, and K = 24.1 over 28 arcmin2 (deep) in the GOODS-North region. The wide and very deep NIR data allow us to measure the number density of galaxies down to low stellar mass (109-1010 M ☉) even at high redshift with high statistical accuracy. The normalization of the mass function decreases with redshift, and the integrated stellar mass density becomes ~8%-18% of the local value at z ~ 2 and ~4%-9% at z ~ 3, which are consistent with results of previous studies in general fields. Furthermore, we found that the low-mass slope becomes steeper with redshift from α ~ –1.3 at z ~ 1 to α ~ –1.6 at z ~ 3 and that the evolution of the number density of low-mass (109-1010 M ☉) galaxies is weaker than that of M* (~1011 M ☉) galaxies. This indicates that the contribution of low-mass galaxies to the total stellar mass density has been significant at high redshift. The steepening of the low-mass slope with redshift is an opposite trend expected from the stellar mass dependence of the specific star formation rate reported in previous studies. The present result suggests that the hierarchical merging process overwhelmed the effect of the stellar mass growth by star formation and was very important for the stellar mass assembly of these galaxies at 1 z 3.This publication has 96 references indexed in Scilit:
- A Highly Complete Spectroscopic Survey of the GOODS‐N FieldThe Astrophysical Journal, 2008
- On the galaxy stellar mass function, the massmetallicity relation and the implied baryonic mass functionMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2008
- The contribution of very massive high-redshift SWIRE galaxies to the stellar mass functionAstronomy & Astrophysics, 2007
- The SWIRE-VVDS-CFHTLS surveys: stellar mass assembly over the last 10 Gyr. Evidence for a major build up of the red sequence betweenz= 2 andz= 1Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2007
- The recycling of gas and metals in galaxy formation: predictions of a dynamical feedback modelMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2007
- Galaxy bimodality versus stellar mass and environmentMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2006
- The stellar masses of 25 000 galaxies at 0.2 ≤ z ≤ 1.0 estimated by the COMBO-17 surveyAstronomy & Astrophysics, 2006
- The Environmental Dependence of the Infrared Luminosity and Stellar Mass FunctionsThe Astrophysical Journal, 2001
- Stellar Mass‐to‐Light Ratios and the Tully‐Fisher RelationThe Astrophysical Journal, 2001
- SExtractor: Software for source extractionAstronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series, 1996