paper

The evolution of the mass-size relation for early type galaxies from z~1 to the present: dependence on environment, mass-range and detailed morphology

arXiv:1207.5793 · doi:10.1093/mnras/sts150

Abstract

[abridged] We study the dependence of the galaxy size evolution on morphology, stellar mass and large scale environment for a sample of 298 group and 384 field quiescent early-type galaxies from the COSMOS survey, selected from z~1 to the present, and with masses $l o g (M / M_{⊙}) > 10.5$ . The galaxy size growth depends on galaxy mass and early-type galaxy morphology, e.g., elliptical galaxies evolve differently than lenticular galaxies. At the low mass end - $10.5 < L o g (M / M_{⊙}) < 11$ , ellipticals do not show strong size growth from $z \sim 1$ to the present (10% to 30% depending on the morphological classification). On the other end, massive ellipticals -log(M/M_\odot)>11.2 $- a pp r o x ima t e l y d o u b l e d t h e i r s i z e . I n t er es t in g l y, l e n t i c u l a r g a l a x i es d i s pl a y d i f f er e n t b e ha v i or : t h ey a pp e a r m or eco m p a c t o na v er a g e an d t h ey d os h o w a s i z e g r o w t h o f \sim 60$ log(M_h/M_\odot)<14 $), i . e ., g r o u p an df i e l d g a l a x i es f o l l o w t h es am e t r e n d s, w hi c hi s a t v a r ian ce w i t h p r e d i c t i o n s f r o m c u r r e n t hi er a r c hi c a l m o d e l s t ha t s h o w a c l e a r d e p e n d e n ceo f s i z e g r o w t h o nha l o ma ss f or ma ss i v ee l l i pt i c a l s -$ log(M_*/M_\odot)>11.2$.

MNRAS in press, updated version after revision