Resolving Quiescent Galaxies at $z\gtrsim 2$: I. Search for Gravitationally Lensed Sources and Characterization of their Structure, Stellar Populations, and Line Emission

Abstract

Quiescent galaxies at $z\gtrsim 2$ are compact and have weak or absent emission lines, making it difficult to spatially resolve their kinematics and stellar populations using ground-based spectroscopy. Gravitationally lensed examples provide a promising route forward, but such objects are very rare. We describe a search in the fields of 232 galaxy clusters that has uncovered five bright ($H_{\mathrm{AB}}<20$) lensed galaxies with red near-infrared colors. These include MRG-M0138, the brightest lensed galaxy known in the near-infrared. Analysis of near-infrared spectra and multiband photometry confirms that all are quiescent galaxies at z=1.95-2.64 with stellar ages of 0.5-1.4 Gyr (corresponding to formation epochs $z_{\mathrm{form}}\simeq 3-4$) and stellar masses of $10^{11.6-12.8}{\mu }^{-1}{M}_{\odot }$, where $\mu$ is the magnification. In three cases we derive lens models and reconstruct the source structure; these galaxies are massive ($M_{\ast }\gtrsim 10^{11.0}{M}_{\odot }$) and follow the mass--size relation defined by unlensed samples. In two of these three galaxies, the main structural component is an inclined disk. Weak emission lines are detected in four of five galaxies with high ratios [NII]/H$\alpha$~2-6 that are inconsistent with a star formation origin. Based on the line ratios, the H$\alpha$ equivalent widths, and the distribution and kinematics of the gas, we infer that shocks are likely present in at least two galaxies and could be present in all of the line emitters. We speculate that these could be analogs of local galaxies in which AGN jet-driven outflows are thought to heat the interstellar medium and suppress star formation. In further papers we will present spatially resolved measurements of the stellar populations and kinematics of this unique sample.

arXiv commentAccepted to ApJ

References in corpus (113)

• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• The physical properties of star forming galaxies in the low redshift universe
• MultiNest: an efficient and robust Bayesian inference tool for cosmology and particle physics
• MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks (MIST). I: Solar-Scaled Models
• Theoretical Modeling of Starburst Galaxies
• The Eleventh and Twelfth Data Releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final Data from SDSS-III
• The Host Galaxies and Classification of Active Galactic Nuclei
• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling I: The relevance of uncertain aspects of stellar evolution and the IMF to the derived physical properties of galaxies
• 3D-HST+CANDELS: The Evolution of the Galaxy Size-Mass Distribution since $z=3$
• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling III: model calibration, comparison, and evaluation
• A Method of Correcting Near-Infrared Spectra for Telluric Absorption
• An ultra-deep near-infrared spectrum of a compact quiescent galaxy at z=2.2
• 3D-HST WFC3-selected Photometric Catalogs in the Five CANDELS/3D-HST Fields: Photometry, Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Masses
• The Evolution of the Stellar Mass Functions of Star-Forming and Quiescent Galaxies to z = 4 from the COSMOS/UltraVISTA Survey
• The MAPPINGS III Library of Fast Radiative Shock Models
• Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH): An Overview
• redMaPPer I: Algorithm and SDSS DR8 Catalog
• Molecfit: A general tool for telluric absorption correction. I. Method and application to ESO instruments
• Confirmation of the remarkable compactness of massive quiescent galaxies at z~2.3: early-type galaxies did not form in a simple monolithic collapse
• A new photometric technique for the joint selection of star-forming and passive galaxies at 1.4<z<2.5
• Optimal Techniques in Two-dimensional Spectroscopy: Background Subtraction for the 21st Century
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly: Stellar Mass Estimates
• A Bayesian approach to strong lensing modelling of galaxy clusters
• A comprehensive classification of galaxies in the SDSS: How to tell true from fake AGN?
• Compaction and Quenching of High-z Galaxies in Cosmological Simulations: Blue and Red Nuggets
• The size evolution of galaxies since z~3: combining SDSS, GEMS and FIRES
• Planck 2013 results. XXIX. Planck catalogue of Sunyaev-Zeldovich sources
• The NEWFIRM Medium-band Survey: Photometric Catalogs, Redshifts and the Bimodal Color Distribution of Galaxies out to z~3
• MACS: A quest for the most massive galaxy clusters in the universe
• Can Minor Merging Account for the Size Growth of Quiescent Galaxies? New Results from the CANDELS Survey
• A Significant Population of Red, Near-IR Selected High Redshift Galaxies
• Size evolution of the most massive galaxies at 1.7<z<3 from GOODS NICMOS survey imaging
• Nebular Continuum and Line Emission in Stellar Population Synthesis Models
• A Public Ks-selected Catalog in the COSMOS/UltraVISTA Field: Photometry, Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Population Parameters
• GAMA: towards a physical understanding of galaxy formation
• SDSS IV MaNGA - Spatially resolved diagnostic diagrams: A proof that many galaxies are LIERs
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Structural Investigation of Galaxies via Model Analysis (SIGMA)
• Environment and self-regulation in galaxy formation
• Forming Compact Massive Galaxies
• The nature of LINER galaxies: Ubiquitous hot old stars and rare accreting black holes
• Dusty, Radiation Pressure Dominated Photoionization. I. Model Description, Structure And Grids
• A complete sample of twelve very X-ray luminous galaxy clusters at z>0.5
• The delay-time distribution of type-Ia supernovae from Sloan II
• The Density Profiles of Massive, Relaxed Galaxy Clusters. I. The Total Density Over Three Decades in Radius
• The Nature of LINER-like Emission in Red Galaxies
• The Formation of Massive, Compact Galaxies at z=2 in the Illustris Simulation
• The Assembly History of Field Spheroidals: Evolution of Mass-to-light Ratios and Signatures of Recent Star Formation
• Dusty, Radiation Pressure Dominated Photoionization. II. Multi-Wavelength Emission Line Diagnostics for Narrow Line Regions
• The Frontier Fields Lens Modeling Comparison Project
• Stellar Kinematics of z~2 Galaxies and the Inside-Out Growth of Quiescent Galaxies
• The Majority of Compact Massive Galaxies at z~2 are Disk Dominated
• Evidence for Wide-Spread AGN Driven Outflows in the Most Massive z~1-2 Star Forming Galaxies
• Lens models and magnification maps of the six Hubble Frontier Fields clusters
• Spectroscopic Confirmation of the Rich z=1.80 Galaxy Cluster JKCS 041 Using the WFC3 Grism: Environmental Trends in the Ages and Structure of Quiescent Galaxies
• CLASH: The enhanced lensing efficiency of the highly elongated merging cluster MACS J0416.1-2403
• Suppressing star formation in quiescent galaxies with supermassive black hole winds
• Sizes and surface brightness profiles of quiescent galaxies at z ~ 2
• Mass-to-Light Ratios of Field Early-Type Galaxies at z~1 from Ultra-Deep Spectroscopy: Evidence for Mass-dependent Evolution
• Resolved Spectroscopy of Gravitationally-Lensed Galaxies: Recovering Coherent Velocity Fields in Sub-Luminous z~2-3 Galaxies
• New Multiply-Lensed Galaxies Identified in ACS/NIC3 Observations of Cl0024+1654 Using an Improved Mass Model
• The CFHTLS Strong Lensing Legacy Survey: I. Survey overview and T0002 release sample
• The formation and assembly of a typical star-forming galaxy at z~3
• Red Nuggets at High Redshift: Structural Evolution of Quiescent Galaxies Over 10 Gyr of Cosmic History
• Sub-kpc ALMA imaging of compact star-forming galaxies at z~2.5: revealing the formation of dense galactic cores in the progenitors of compact quiescent galaxies
• LoCuSS: First Results from Strong-lensing Analysis of 20 Massive Galaxy Clusters at z~0.2
• Evolution of Early-Type Galaxies in Distant Clusters: The Fundamental Plane using HST Imaging and Keck Spectroscopy
• Quiescent Galaxies in the 3D-HST Survey: Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Large Number of Galaxies with Relatively Old Stellar Populations at z~2
• Stellar populations from spectroscopy of a large sample of quiescent galaxies at z > 1: Measuring the contribution of progenitor bias to early size growth
• The MOSDEF Survey: Dissecting the star-formation rate vs. stellar mass relation using H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$ emission lines at z ~ 2
• Deep Absorption Line Studies of Quiescent Galaxies at z~2: The Dynamical Mass-Size Relation, and First Constraints on the Fundamental plane
• Suppression of Star Formation in NGC 1266
• A Near-Infrared Spectroscopic Survey of K-selected Galaxies at z ~ 2.3: Comparison of Stellar Population Synthesis Codes and Constraints from the Rest-frame NIR
• A massive, quiescent, population II galaxy at a redshift of 2.1
• A massive, dead disk galaxy in the early Universe
• A New Survey for Giant Arcs
• The CASSOWARY spectroscopy survey: A new sample of gravitationally lensed galaxies in SDSS
• MOSFIRE Spectroscopy of Quiescent Galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5. I - Evolution of Structural and Dynamical Properties
• A Spatially Resolved Map of the Kinematics, Star-Formation and Stellar Mass Assembly in a Star-Forming Galaxy at z=4.9
• How dead are dead galaxies? Mid-Infrared fluxes of quiescent galaxies at redshift 0.3 < z < 2.5: implications for star formation rates and dust heating
• Resolving Quiescent Galaxies at $z\gtrsim 2$: II. Direct Measures of Rotational Support
• A Keck Survey of Gravitationally-Lensed Star-Forming Galaxies: High Spatial Resolution Studies of Kinematics and Metallicity Gradients
• The 8 o'clock Arc: A Serendipitous Discovery of a Strongly Lensed Lyman Break Galaxy in the SDSS DR4 Imaging Data
• Keck-I MOSFIRE spectroscopy of compact star-forming galaxies at z$\gtrsim$2: High velocity dispersions in progenitors of compact quiescent galaxies
• A Massive Galaxy in its Core Formation Phase Three Billion Years After the Big Bang
• Discovery of a Strongly Lensed Massive Quiescent Galaxy at z=2.636: Spatially Resolved Spectroscopy and Indications of Rotation
• Rotating starburst cores in massive galaxies at z=2.5
• Lens Models Under the Microscope: Comparison of Hubble Frontier Field Cluster Magnification Maps
• KMOS-3D Reveals Low-Level Star Formation Activity in Massive Quiescent Galaxies at 0.7 < z < 2.7
• The Initial Mass Function in the Nearest Strong Lenses from SNELLS: Assessing the Consistency of Lensing, Dynamical, and Spectroscopic Constraints
• Spatially resolved kinematics in the central 1 kpc of a compact star-forming galaxy at z=2.3 from ALMA CO observations
• Exceptional AGN-driven turbulence inhibits star formation in the 3C 326N radio-galaxy
• A spectroscopic sample of massive, evolved z~2 galaxies: Implications for the evolution of the mass-size relation
• The size-star formation relation of massive galaxies at 1.5<z<2.5
• The Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS Redshift Survey of Galaxy Evolution since z=1.5: I. Description and Methodology and More!
• Absorption Line Spectroscopy of Gravitationally-Lensed Galaxies: Further Constraints on the Escape Fraction of Ionizing Photons at High Redshift
• Star Formation Suppression Due to Jet Feedback in Radio Galaxies with Shocked Warm Molecular Gas
• Red nuggets grow inside-out: evidence from gravitational lensing
• Shape Evolution of Massive Early-Type Galaxies: Confirmation of Increased Disk Prevalence at z>1
• A bright, spatially extended lensed galaxy at z = 1.7 behind the cluster RCS2 032727-132623
• The Ages of Passive Galaxies in a z=1.62 Protocluster
• Confirming the Quiescent Galaxy Population out to $z=3$: A Stacking Analysis of Mid-, Far-Infrared and Radio Data
• The science of short exposures: Hubble SNAPshot observations of massive galaxy clusters
• Ages of massive galaxies at $0.5<z<2.0$ from 3D-HST rest-frame optical spectroscopy
• Precise strong lensing mass profile of the CLASH galaxy cluster MACS 2129
• HST/WFC3 Near-Infrared spectroscopy of quenched galaxies at z~1.5 from the WISP Survey: Stellar population properties
• Stellar Velocity Dispersion for a Strongly-Lensed, Intermediate-Mass Quiescent Galaxy at z=2.8
• A New Approach to Identifying the Most Powerful Gravitational Lensing Telescopes
• Thirty-fold: Extreme gravitational lensing of a quiescent galaxy at $z=1.6$
• A Strongly-Lensed Massive Ultra-Compact Quiescent Galaxy at z ~ 2.4 in the COSMOS/UltraVISTA Field
• VLT/X-Shooter Near-Infrared Spectroscopy and HST Imaging of Gravitationally-Lensed z~2 Compact Quiescent Galaxies

Cited by in corpus (37)

• MOSFIRE Spectroscopy of Quiescent Galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5. II - Star Formation Histories and Galaxy Quenching
• The SPTpol Extended Cluster Survey
• The Massive Ancient Galaxies At $z>3$ NEar-infrared (MAGAZ3NE) Survey: Confirmation of Extremely Rapid Star-Formation and Quenching Timescales for Massive Galaxies in the Early Universe
• An Extremely Massive Quiescent Galaxy at $z=3.493$: Evidence of Insufficiently Rapid Quenching Mechanisms in Theoretical Models
• Resolving Quiescent Galaxies at $z\gtrsim 2$: II. Direct Measures of Rotational Support
• Stellar Velocity Dispersion of a Massive Quenching Galaxy at z=4.01
• Structural evolution in massive galaxies at z~2
• JWST Reveals Widespread AGN-Driven Neutral Gas Outflows in Massive z ~ 2 Galaxies
• Quenching of star formation from a lack of inflowing gas to galaxies
• Lensed Type Ia Supernova "Encore" at z=2: The First Instance of Two Multiply-Imaged Supernovae in the Same Host Galaxy
• Strong gravitational lensing and microlensing of supernovae
• HST grism spectroscopy of z~3 massive quiescent galaxies: Approaching the metamorphosis
• Resolved Multi-element Stellar Chemical Abundances in the Brightest Quiescent Galaxy at z $\sim$ 2
• Reconstructing the Assembly of Massive Galaxies. I: The Importance of the Progenitor Effect in the Observed Properties of Quiescent Galaxies at $z\approx 2$
• Early-type galaxy density profiles from IllustrisTNG: II. Evolutionary trend of the total density profile
• Selection of massive evolved galaxies at $3\le z\le 4.5$ in the CANDELS fields
• An exquisitely deep view of quenching galaxies through the gravitational lens: Stellar population, morphology, and ionized gas
• Early results from GLASS-JWST. IX: First spectroscopic confirmation of low-mass quiescent galaxies at $z>2$ with NIRISS
• REQUIEM-2D: Spatially Resolved Stellar Populations from HST 2D Grism Spectroscopy
• AGN Feedback in Quiescent Galaxies at Cosmic Noon Traced by Ionized Gas Emission
• REQUIEM-2D: A diversity of formation pathways in a sample of spatially-resolved massive quiescent galaxies at z~2
• ALMA 1.3 mm Survey of Lensed Submillimeter Galaxies (SMGs) Selected by Herschel: Discovery of Spatially Extended SMGs and Implications
• Ubiquitous [OII] Emission in Quiescent Galaxies at z ~ 0.85
• Cosmology with supernova Encore in the strong lensing cluster MACS J0138-2155: Lens model comparison and H0 measurement
• Discovery of two Einstein crosses from massive post--blue nugget galaxies at z>1 in KiDS
• Revisiting the Color-Color Selection: Submillimeter and AGN Properties of NUV-r-J Selected Quiescent Galaxies
• The uncertain interstellar medium of high-redshift quiescent galaxies: Impact of methodology
• COOL-LAMPS II. Characterizing the Size and Star Formation History of a Bright Strongly Lensed Early-Type Galaxy at Redshift 1.02
• When relics were made: vigorous stellar rotation and low dark matter content in the massive ultra-compact galaxy GS-9209 at z=4.66
• Harnessing the Hubble Space Telescope Archives: A Catalogue of 21,926 Interacting Galaxies
• Enhanced strong-lensing model of MACS~J0138.0$-$2155 based on new JWST and VLT/MUSE observations
• ALMA 1.1mm Observations of a Conservative Sample of High Redshift Massive Quiescent Galaxies in SHELA
• One of Everything: The Breakthrough Listen Exotica Catalog
• The MOSDEF Survey: A New View of a Remarkable z=1.89 Merger
• A stellar dynamical mass measurement of an inactive black hole at redshift 2
• Reconstructing the Assembly of Massive Galaxies. III: Quiescent Galaxies Loose Angular Momentum as They Evolve in a Mass-dependent Fashion
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly: A Comparison between Galaxy-Galaxy Lens Searches in KiDS/GAMA