Structural and morphological properties of ultraluminous infrared galaxies at $1<z<3$

Abstract

Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) near-infrared high-resolution imaging from the 3D-HST survey, we analyze the morphology and structure of 502 ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs; $L_{\mathrm{IR}}>10^{12}{L}_{\odot }$) at $1<z<3$. Their rest-frame optical morphologies show that high-redshift ULIRGs are a mixture of mergers or interacting systems, irregular galaxies, disks, and ellipticals. Most of ULIRGs in our sample can be roughly divided into merging systems and late-type galaxies (Sb$-$Ir), with relatively high $M_{20}$ ($>-1.7$) and small Sérsic index ($n<2.5$), while others are elliptical-like (E/S0/Sa) morphologies with lower $M_{20}$ ($<-1.7$) and larger $n$ ($>2.5$). The morphological diversities of ULIRGs suggest that there are different formation processes for these galaxies. Merger processes between galaxies and disk instabilities play an important role in the formation and evolution of ULIRGs at high redshift. In the meantime, we also find that the evolution of the size ($r_{\mathrm{e}}$) with redshift of ULIRGs at redshift $z\sim 1-3$ follows $r_{\mathrm{e}}\propto (1+z{)}^{-(0.96\pm 0.23)}$.

arXiv comment11 pages,8 figures, publication in Baltic Astronomy

References in corpus (21)

• 3D-HST WFC3-selected Photometric Catalogs in the Five CANDELS/3D-HST Fields: Photometry, Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Masses
• A New Non-Parametric Approach to Galaxy Morphological Classification
• 3D-HST: A wide-field grism spectroscopic survey with the Hubble Space Telescope
• Structural Parameters of Galaxies in CANDELS
• Galaxy morphology to I=25 mag in the Hubble Deep Field
• Spitzer Quasar and ULIRG Evolution Study (QUEST). IV. Comparison of 1-Jy Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies with Palomar-Green Quasars
• On Star Formation Rates and Star Formation Histories of Galaxies out to z ~ 3
• A Public Ks-selected Catalog in the COSMOS/UltraVISTA Field: Photometry, Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Population Parameters
• A wide area survey for high-redshift massive galaxies. I. Number counts and clustering of BzKs and EROs
• Strong PAH Emission from z~2 ULIRGs
• MOIRCS Deep Survey. IX. Deep Near-Infrared Imaging Data and Source Catalog
• HST Morphologies of z~2 Dust Obscured Galaxies I: Power-law Sources
• HST Morphologies of z ~ 2 Dust-Obscured Galaxies II: Bump Sources
• High Redshift Dust Obscured Galaxies, A Morphology-SED Connection Revealed by Keck Adaptive Optics
• HST/NICMOS Imaging of Bright High-Redshift 24μm-selected Galaxies: Merging Properties
• Classification of Extremely Red Objects in the COSMOS Field
• Morphologies of High Redshift, Dust Obscured Galaxies from Keck Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics
• Predicting Planets in Kepler Multi-Planet Systems
• Stellar populations of ultraluminous infrared galaxies
• Classification of Extremely Red Objects in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• Selection and Mid-infrared Spectroscopy of Ultraluminous Star-Forming Galaxies at z~2