Direct Measurements of the Stellar Continua and Balmer/4000 Angstrom Breaks of Red z>2 Galaxies: Redshifts and Improved Constraints on Stellar Populations

Abstract

We use near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy obtained with GNIRS on Gemini, NIRSPEC on KECK, and ISAAC on the VLT to study the rest-frame optical continua of three `Distant Red Galaxies' (having Js - Ks > 2.3) at z>2. All three galaxy spectra show the Balmer/4000 Angstrom break in the rest-frame optical. The spectra allow us to determine spectroscopic redshifts from the continuum with an estimated accuracy dz/(1+z) ~ 0.001-0.04. These redshifts agree well with the emission line redshifts for the 2 galaxies with Halpha emission. This technique is particularly important for galaxies that are faint in the rest-frame UV, as they are underrepresented in high redshift samples selected in optical surveys and are too faint for optical spectroscopy. Furthermore, we use the break, continuum shape, and equivalent width of Halpha together with evolutionary synthesis models to constrain the age, star formation timescale, dust content, stellar mass and star formation rate of the galaxies. Inclusion of the NIR spectra in the stellar population fits greatly reduces the range of possible solutions for stellar population properties. We find that the stellar populations differ greatly among the three galaxies, ranging from a young dusty starburst with a small break and strong emission lines to an evolved galaxy with a strong break and no detected line emission. The dusty starburst galaxy has an age of 0.3 Gyr and a stellar mass of 1*10^11 Msun. The spectra of the two most evolved galaxies imply ages of 1.3-1.4 Gyr and stellar masses of 4*10^11 Msun. The large range of properties seen in these galaxies strengthens our previous much more uncertain results from broadband photometry. Larger samples are required to determine the relative frequency of dusty starbursts and (nearly) passively evolving galaxies at z~2.5.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 12 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (41)

• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• On the variation of the Initial Mass Function
• Star Formation in Galaxies Along the Hubble Sequence
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Origin of the Mass--Metallicity Relation: Insights from 53,000 Star-Forming Galaxies in the SDSS
• Stellar Masses and Star Formation Histories for 10^5 Galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• High Redshift Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field. Color Selection and Star Formation History to z=4
• The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey: Initial Results From Optical and Near-Infrared Imaging
• Cosmic-Ray Rejection by Laplacian Edge Detection
• The Dependence of Star Formation History and Internal Structure on Stellar Mass for 10^5 Low-Redshift Galaxies
• Differential Galaxy Evolution in Cluster and Field Galaxies at z=0.3
• The Rest Frame Optical Spectra of Lyman Break Galaxies: Star Formation, Extinction, Abundances, and Kinematics
• Lyman Break Galaxies at Redshift z~3: Survey Description and Full Data Set
• The Stellar Populations and Evolution of Lyman Break Galaxies
• Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Population of Normal Star-Forming Galaxies at Redshifts z>3
• The Rest-Frame Optical Properties of z~3 Galaxies
• A Significant Population of Red, Near-IR Selected High Redshift Galaxies
• Spectroscopy of Lyman Break Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field
• IRAC Mid-Infrared Imaging of the Hubble Deep Field South: Star Formation Histories and Stellar Masses of Red Galaxies at z>2
• Spitzer Observations of Massive Red Galaxies at High Redshift
• UV to Mid-IR Observations of Star-forming Galaxies at z~2: Stellar Masses and Stellar Populations
• The Multiwavelength Survey by Yale-Chile (MUSYC): Survey Design and Deep Public UBVRIz' Images and Catalogs of the Extended Hubble Deep Field South
• The Rest-Frame Optical Luminosity Density, Color, and Stellar Mass Density of the Universe from z=0 to z=3
• The Rest-frame Optical Spectra of SCUBA Galaxies
• Optical-IR Spectral Energy Distributions of z>2 Lyman Break Galaxies
• A Census of Optical and Near-Infrared Selected Star-Forming and Passively Evolving Galaxies at Redshift Z~2
• The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey - VLT/FORS2 Spectroscopy in the GOODS-South Field
• H-alpha Spectroscopy of Galaxies at z>2: Kinematics and Star Formation
• Near-IR bright galaxies at z~2. Entering the spheroid formation epoch ?
• Evidence for Solar Metallicities in Massive Star-forming Galaxies at z>~2
• The Space Density and Colors of Massive Galaxies at 2<z<3: the Predominance of Distant Red Galaxies
• A Substantial Population of Red Galaxies at z > 2: Modeling of the Spectral Energy Distributions of an Extended Sample
• Stellar Populations and Kinematics of Red Galaxies at z>2: Implications for the Formation of Massive Galaxies
• Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Substantial Population of Luminous Red Galaxies at Redshifts z>2
• A K-band Selected Photometric Redshift Catalog in the HDF-S: Sampling the Rest-Frame V-Band to z=3
• Faint InfraRed Extragalactic Survey: Data and Source Catalogue of the MS1054-03 field
• Strong Spatial Clustering of UV-selected Galaxies with Magnitude Ks<20.5 and Redshift Z~2
• Star Formation in Distant Red Galaxies: Spitzer observations in the Hubble Deep Field South
• Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph Observations of a Red Star Forming Galaxy at z=2.225: Evidence for Shock-Ionization due to a Galactic Wind
• Chandra Constraints on the AGN Fraction and Star Formation Rate of Red z>~2 Galaxies in the FIRES MS1054-03 Field
• Deep near-infrared spectroscopy of submillimetre-selected galaxies

Cited by in corpus (66)

• 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
• EAZY: A Fast, Public Photometric Redshift Code
• An ultra-deep near-infrared spectrum of a compact quiescent galaxy at z=2.2
• The Evolutionary History of Lyman Break Galaxies Between Redshift 4 and 6: Observing Successive Generations of Massive Galaxies in Formation
• What do we learn from IRAC observations of galaxies at 2 < z < 3.5?
• The realm of the galaxy protoclusters
• A Significant Population of Very Luminous Dust-Obscured Galaxies at Redshift z ~ 2
• HST and Spitzer imaging of red and blue galaxies at z~2.5: A correlation between size and star formation activity from compact quiescent galaxies to extended star forming galaxies
• The COSMOS-WIRCam near-infrared imaging survey: I: BzK selected passive and star forming galaxy candidates at z>1.4
• Evidence of Cosmic Evolution of the Stellar Initial Mass Function
• Near infrared spectroscopy and star-formation histories of 3<z<4 quiescent galaxies
• Spectroscopic Identification of Massive Galaxies at z~2.3 with Strongly Suppressed Star Formation
• The Stellar Mass Content of Submillimeter-Selected Galaxies
• Direct measurements of dust attenuation in z~1.5 star-forming galaxies from 3D-HST: Implications for dust geometry and star formation rates
• NICMOS Imaging of DRGs in the HDF-S: A Relation Between Star-Formation and Size at z ~ 2.5
• Lightcone mock catalogues from semi-analytic models of galaxy formation - I. Construction and application to the BzK colour selection
• The Detection of a Red Sequence of Massive Field Galaxies at z~2.3 and its Evolution to z~0
• The Star Formation Epoch of the Most Massive Early-Type Galaxies
• 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 Near-Infrared Spectroscopic Survey of K-selected Galaxies at z~2.3: Redshifts and Implications for Broadband Photometric Studies
• Formation epochs, star formation histories and sizes of massive early-type galaxies in cluster and field environments at z=1.2: insights from the rest-frame UV
• The Multiwavelength Survey by Yale-Chile (MUSYC): Deep Near-Infrared Imaging and the Selection of Distant Galaxies
• Recovering Stellar Population Properties and Redshifts from Broad-Band Photometry of Simulated Galaxies: Lessons for SED Modeling
• Measuring the Average Evolution of Luminous Galaxies at z<3: The Rest-frame Optical Luminosity Density, Spectral Energy Distribution, and Stellar Mass Density
• A comparison among LBGs, DRGs and BzK galaxies: their contribution to the stellar mass density in the GOODS-MUSIC sample
• Clustering of K-selected Galaxies at 2<z<3.5: Evidence for a Color-Density Relation
• Color and Stellar Population Gradients in Passively Evolving Galaxies at z~2 from HST/WFC3 Deep Imaging in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• MOIRCS Deep Survey. VI. Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of K-Selected Star-Forming Galaxies at z~2
• The Origin of Line Emission in Massive z~2.3 Galaxies: Evidence for Cosmic Downsizing of AGN Host Galaxies
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey: Tracing the galaxy stellar mass assembly history over the last 8Gyr
• Halpha and 4000 Angstrom Break Measurements for ~3500 K-selected Galaxies at 0.5<z<2.0
• Preventing Star Formation in Early-Type Galaxies with Late-Time Stellar Heating
• CLASH: z ~ 6 young galaxy candidate quintuply lensed by the frontier field cluster RXC J2248.7-4431
• Optical and near-IR spectroscopy of candidate red galaxies in two z~2.5 proto-clusters
• On the formation time scale of massive cluster ellipticals based on deep near-IR spectroscopy at z~2
• The Typical Massive Quiescent Galaxy at z$\sim$3 is a Post-starburst
• The SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey: the submillimetre properties of Lyman break galaxies at z=3-5
• Presence of dust with a UV bump in massive, star-forming galaxies at 1 < z < 2.5
• Ultraviolet, Optical, and Infrared Constraints on Models of Stellar Populations and Dust Attenuation
• Extinction Corrected Star Formation Rates Empirically Derived from Ultraviolet-Optical Colors
• High Redshift Galaxy Populations and their Descendants
• Comparing six evolutionary population synthesis models through spectral synthesis on galaxies
• How Massive are Massive Compact Galaxies?
• X-shooter Spectroscopy and HST Imaging of 15 Ultra Massive Quiescent Galaxies at $z\gtrsim 2$
• MOIRCS Deep Survey. I: DRG Number Counts
• HST grism spectroscopy of z~3 massive quiescent galaxies: Approaching the metamorphosis
• The Color Magnitude Distribution of Field Galaxies to z~3: the evolution and modeling of the blue sequence
• Star Formation and AGN activity in Galaxies classified using the 1.6 μm Bump and PAH features at $z=0.4-2$
• Optical Spectroscopy of Distant Red Galaxies
• The miniJPAS survey: the photometric redshift catalogue
• The Density and Spectral Energy Distributions of Red Galaxies at z~3.7
• An ancient massive quiescent galaxy found in a gas-rich z ~ 3 group
• The NIRSpec Wide GTO Survey
• SHARDS: stellar populations and star formation histories of a mass-selected sample of 0.65<z<1.1 galaxies
• Possible identification of massive and evolved galaxies At z > 5
• Adaptive Optics Rest-Frame V-band Imaging of Lyman Break Galaxies at z~3: High-surface Density Disk-like Galaxies ?
• The interstellar medium and feedback in the progenitors of the compact passive galaxies at z~2
• A Wide Area Survey for High-redshift Massive Galaxies. II. Near-infrared Spectroscopy of BzK-selected Massive Star-forming Galaxies
• Stellar Velocity Dispersion for a Strongly-Lensed, Intermediate-Mass Quiescent Galaxy at z=2.8
• A new sample of X-ray selected narrow emission-line galaxies. II. Looking for True Seyfert 2
• On the Stellar Populations in Faint Red Galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• Stellar populations of massive elliptical galaxies in very rich clusters
• Revealing the quiescent galaxy population in the Spiderweb protocluster at z=2.16 with deep HST/WFC3 slitless spectroscopy
• The abundance and colours of galaxies in high redshift clusters in the cold dark matter cosmology
• Stellar properties of z ~ 1 Lyman-break galaxies from ACS slitless grism spectra
• Physical properties of distant red galaxies in the COSMOS/UltraVISTA field