Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the wavelength dependence of galaxy structure versus redshift and luminosity

Abstract

We study how the sizes and radial profiles of galaxies vary with wavelength, by fitting Sersic functions simultaneously to imaging in nine optical and near-infrared bands. To quantify the wavelength dependence of effective radius we use the ratio, $\mathcal{R}$, of measurements in two restframe bands. The dependence of Sersic index on wavelength, $\mathcal{N}$, is computed correspondingly. Vulcani et al. (2014) have demonstrated that different galaxy populations present sharply contrasting behaviour in terms of $\mathcal{R}$ and $\mathcal{N}$. Here we study the luminosity dependence of this result. We find that at higher luminosities, early-type galaxies display a more substantial decrease in effective radius with wavelength, whereas late-types present a more pronounced increase in Sersic index. The structural contrast between types thus increases with luminosity. By considering samples at different redshifts, we demonstrate that lower data quality reduces the apparent difference between the main galaxy populations. However, our conclusions remain robust to this effect. We show that accounting for different redshift and luminosity selections partly reconciles the size variation measured by Vulcani et al. with the weaker trends found by other recent studies. Dividing galaxies by visual morphology confirms the behaviour inferred using morphological proxies, although the sample size is greatly reduced. Finally, we demonstrate that varying dust opacity and disc inclination can account for features of the joint distribution of $\mathcal{R}$ and $\mathcal{N}$ for late-type galaxies. However, dust does not appear to explain the highest values of $\mathcal{R}$ and $\mathcal{N}$. The bulge-disc nature of galaxies must also contribute to the wavelength-dependence of their structure.

14 pages, 11 figures, accepted by MNRAS; v2 corrected to match journal version

References in corpus (13)

• The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS)
• 3D-HST+CANDELS: The Evolution of the Galaxy Size-Mass Distribution since $z=3$
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): end of survey report and data release 2
• The Millennium Galaxy Catalogue: the B-band attenuation of bulge and disc light and the implied cosmic dust and stellar mass densities
• GALAPAGOS: From Pixels to Parameters
• A Public, K-Selected, Optical-to-Near-Infrared Catalog of the Extended Chandra Deep Field South (ECDFS) from the MUltiwavelength Survey by Yale-Chile (MUSYC)
• Parametrizing the Stellar Haloes of Galaxies
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the wavelength-dependent sizes and profiles of galaxies revealed by MegaMorph
• The Millennium Galaxy Catalogue: The luminosity functions of bulges and discs and their implied stellar mass densities
• Modelling the spectral energy distribution of galaxies. IV Correcting apparent disk scalelengths and central surface brightnesses for the effect of dust at optical and near-infrared wavelengths
• MegaMorph -- multi-wavelength measurement of galaxy structure: physically meaningful bulge-disc decomposition of galaxies near and far
• Spitzer Observations of Low Luminosity Isolated and Low Surface Brightness Galaxies
• MegaMorph: classifying galaxy morphology using multi-wavelength Sérsic profile fits

Cited by in corpus (34)

• ProFit: Bayesian Profile Fitting of Galaxy Images
• A physically motivated definition for the size of galaxies in an era of ultra-deep imaging
• Extending the evolution of the stellar mass-size relation at $z\le 2$ to low stellar mass galaxies from HFF and CANDELS
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: Bulge-Disc Decomposition of IFU Datacubes (BUDDI)
• Sizes, Colour gradients and Resolved Stellar Mass Distributions for the Massive Cluster Galaxies in XMMUJ2235-2557 at z = 1.39
• The ALMA-ALPAKA survey I: high-resolution CO and [CI] kinematics of star-forming galaxies at z = 0.5-3.5
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Understanding the wavelength dependence of galaxy structure with bulge-disc decompositions
• Galapagos-2/Galfitm/GAMA -- multi-wavelength measurement of galaxy structure: separating the properties of spheroid and disk components in modern surveys
• First Light And Reionisation Epoch Simulations (FLARES) IV: The size evolution of galaxies at $z\ge 5$
• Galaxy Sizes Since $z=2$ from the Perspective of Stellar Mass Distribution within Galaxies
• Color gradients and half-mass radii of galaxies out to $z=2$ in the CANDELS/3D-HST fields: further evidence for important differences in the evolution of mass-weighted and light-weighted sizes
• An environmental dependence of the physical and structural properties in the Hydra Cluster galaxies
• The Impact of Dust on the Sizes of Galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization
• The Next Generation Fornax Survey (NGFS): VII. A MUSE view of the nuclear star clusters in Fornax dwarf galaxies
• The local black hole mass function derived from the M_{BH}-P and the M_{BH}-n relations
• The Size-Mass relation at Rest-Frame $1.5\mu$m from JWST/NIRCam in the COSMOS-WEB and PRIMER-COSMOS fields
• Euclid preparation XXVI. The Euclid Morphology Challenge. Towards structural parameters for billions of galaxies
• Nonparametric galaxy morphology from UV to submm wavelengths
• Gemini Imaging of the Host Galaxies of Changing-Look Quasars
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Galaxy colour gradients versus colour, structure and luminosity
• Compact molecular gas emission in local LIRGs among low- and high-z galaxies
• Rest-Frame Near-Infrared Radial Light Profiles up to z=3 from JWST/NIRCam: Wavelength Dependence of the Sérsic Index
• The half mass radius of MaNGA galaxies: Effect of IMF gradients
• Galaxies decomposition with spiral arms -- II: A multiwavelength case study of M 51
• The evolution of radial gradients of MaNGA quiescent elliptical galaxies: inside-out quenching or outer mass growth?
• Color gradients reflect an inside-out growth in early-type galaxies of the cluster MACS J1206.2-0847
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Self-Organizing Map Application on Nearby Galaxies
• The differences between mass- and light-derived structural parameters over time for MaNGA Elliptical galaxies
• Multi-wavelength structure analysis of local cluster galaxies. The WINGS project
• Critical Stellar Central Densities Drive Galaxy Quenching in the Nearby Universe
• Exploring high-z galaxies with the E-ELT
• The effect of environment on the properties of the most massive galaxies at $0.5<z<2.5$ in the cosmos-dash field
• The stellar host in star-forming low-mass galaxies: Evidence for two classes
• The multiwavelength structure of post-starburst galaxies at 0.5 < z < 3 with JWST PRIMER: compact morphologies and residual disturbances