The Fundamental Plane of massive quiescent galaxies out to z~2

Abstract

The Fundamental Plane (FP) of early-type galaxies, relating the effective radius, velocity dispersion, and surface brightness, has long been recognized as a unique tool for analyzing galaxy structure and evolution. With the discovery of distant quiescent galaxies and the introduction of high sensitivity near-infrared spectrographs, it is now possible to explore the FP out to z~2. In this Letter we study the evolution of the FP out to z~2 using kinematic measurements of massive quiescent galaxies ($M_{\ast }>10^{11}{M}_{\odot }$). We find preliminary evidence for the existence of an FP out to z~2. The scatter of the FP, however, increases from z~0 to z~2, even when taking into account the larger measurement uncertainties at higher redshifts. We find a strong evolution of the zero point from z~2 to z~0: $\Delta {\log }_{10}M/L_g\propto (-0.49\pm 0.03)z$. In order to assess whether our spectroscopic sample is representative of the early-type galaxy population at all redshifts, we compare their rest-frame g-z colors with those from a larger mass complete sample of quiescent galaxies. At z>1 we find that the spectroscopic sample is bluer. We use the color offsets to estimate a mass-to-light ratio (M/L) correction. The implied FP zero point evolution after correction is significantly smaller: $\Delta {\log }_{10}M/L_g\propto (-0.39\pm 0.02)z$. This is consistent with an apparent formation redshift of $z_{\mathrm{form}}=6.62_{-1.44}^{+3.19}$ for the underlying population, ignoring the effects of progenitor bias. A more complete spectroscopic sample is required at z~2 to properly measure the M/L evolution from the FP evolution.

Accepted for publication in ApJ, 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table

References in corpus (9)

• EAZY: A Fast, Public Photometric Redshift Code
• An ultra-deep near-infrared spectrum of a compact quiescent galaxy at z=2.2
• Detection of quiescent galaxies in a bicolor sequence from z=0-2
• What do we learn from IRAC observations of galaxies at 2 < z < 3.5?
• The Star Formation Epoch of the Most Massive Early-Type Galaxies
• Clusters at Half Hubble Time: Galaxy Structure and Colors in RXJ0152.7-1357 and MS1054-03
• The stellar velocity dispersion of a compact massive galaxy at z=1.80 using X-Shooter: confirmation of the evolution in the mass-size and mass-dispersion relations
• MOSFIRE Absorption Line Spectroscopy of z > 2 Quiescent Galaxies: Probing a Period of Rapid Size Growth
• M/L and Color Evolution for A Deep Sample of M* Cluster Galaxies at z~1: The Formation Epoch and the Tilt of the Fundamental Plane

Cited by in corpus (16)

• MOSFIRE Spectroscopy of Quiescent Galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5. I - Evolution of Structural and Dynamical Properties
• Correcting the z~8 Galaxy Luminosity Function for Gravitational Lensing Magnification Bias
• The SINFONI survey of powerful radio galaxies at z~2: Jet-driven AGN feedback during the Quasar Era
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: stellar population and structural trends across the Fundamental Plane
• The KMOS Cluster Survey (KCS) I: The fundamental plane and the formation ages of cluster galaxies at redshift $1.4<z<1.6$
• X-shooter Spectroscopy and HST Imaging of 15 Ultra Massive Quiescent Galaxies at $z\gtrsim 2$
• The Extremely High Dark Matter Halo Concentration of the Relic Compact Elliptical Galaxy Mrk 1216
• The kinematics of massive quiescent galaxies at $1.4<z<2.1$: dark matter fractions, IMF variation, and the relation to local early-type galaxies
• The Fundamental Plane in the LEGA-C Survey: unraveling the $M/L$ variations of massive star-forming and quiescent galaxies at $z\sim 0.8$
• The Relation between Dynamical Mass-to-Light Ratio and Color for Massive Quiescent Galaxies out to z~2 and Comparison with Stellar Population Synthesis Models
• The KMOS Cluster Survey (KCS) III: fundamental plane of cluster galaxies at $z\simeq 1.80$ in JKCS 041
• Tightly coupled morpho-kinematic evolution for massive star-forming and quiescent galaxies across 7 Gyr of cosmic time
• The Fundamental Plane of Massive Quiescent Galaxies at z~2
• Is there a tilt in the fundamental (hyper)plane?
• The velocity dispersion function of red galaxies in four Hubble Frontier Fields galaxy clusters
• Past, present and Future of the Scaling Relations of Galaxies and Active Galactic Nuclei