The evolution of baryonic mass function of galaxies to z=3

Abstract

We combine the published stellar mass function (SMF) and gas scaling relations to explore the baryonic (stellar plus cold gas) mass function (BMF) of galaxies to redshift $z=3$. We find evidence that at log$(M_{\mathrm{baryon}}/M_{⨀})>11.3$, the BMF evolves little since $z\sim 2.2$. With the evolution of BMF and SMF, we investigate the baryon net accretion rate (${\dot{\rho }}_{\mathrm{baryon}}$) and stellar mass growth rate (${\dot{\rho }}_{\mathrm{star}}$) for the galaxy population of log($M_{\mathrm{star}}/M_{⨀}$)>10. The ratio between these two quanties, ${\dot{\rho }}_{\mathrm{baryon}}$/${\dot{\rho }}_{\mathrm{star}}$, decreases from ${\dot{\rho }}_{\mathrm{baryon}}$/${\dot{\rho }}_{\mathrm{star}}\sim$2 at $z\sim 2.5$ to ${\dot{\rho }}_{\mathrm{baryon}}$/${\dot{\rho }}_{\mathrm{star}}<$0.5 at $z\sim 0.5$, suggesting that massive galaxies are transforming from the "accretion dominated" phase to the "depletion dominated" phase from high$-z$ to low$-z$. The transition of these two phases occurs at $z\sim 1.5$, which is consistent with the onset redshift of the decline of cosmic star formation rate density. This provides evidence to support the idea that the decline of cosmic star formation rate density since $z\sim 1.5$ is mainly resulted from the decline of baryon net accretion rate and star formation quenching in galaxies.

7 pages, 3 figures, accepted by ApJL

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• The Evolution of the Baryons Associated with Galaxies Averaged over Cosmic Time and Space
• How baryons affect halos and large-scale structure: a unified picture from the Simba simulation
• On the triggering of extreme starburst events in low-metallicity galaxies: a deep search for companions of Green Peas
• From haloes to galaxies. III. The gas cycle of local galaxy populations
• The cosmic environment overtakes the local density in shaping galaxy star formation