Luminosity Functions of Elliptical Galaxies at z < 1.2

Abstract

The luminosity functions of E/S0 galaxies are constructed in 3 different redshift bins (0.2 < z < 0.55, 0.55 < z < 0.8, 0.8 < z < 1.2), using the data from the Hubble Space Telescope Medium Deep Survey (HST MDS) and other HST surveys. These independent luminosity functions show the brightening in the luminosity of E/S0s by about 0.5~1.0 magnitude at z~1, and no sign of significant number evolution. This is the first direct measurement of the luminosity evolution of E/S0 galaxies, and our results support the hypothesis of a high redshift of formation (z > 1) for elliptical galaxies, together with weak evolution of the major merger rate at z < 1.

To be published in ApJ Letters, 4 pages, AAS Latex, 4 figures, and 2 tables

References in corpus (4)

• The CANADA-FRANCE REDSHIFT SURVEY VI: Evolution of the galaxy luminosity function to z ~ 1
• Slicing Through Multicolor Space: Galaxy Redshifts From Broadband Photometry
• The Contribution of Late-type/Irregulars to the Faint Galaxy Counts from HST Medium Deep Survey Images
• THE CANADA-FRANCE REDSHIFT SURVEY III: "Single Emission Line" Objects, Analysis of Repeat Observations, and Spectroscopic Identifications in the 1415+52 and 2215+00 Fields

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• Stellar Population Diagnostics of Elliptical Galaxy Formation
• The Munich Near--Infrared Cluster Survey (MUNICS) -- VI. The stellar masses of K-band selected field galaxies to z ~ 1.2
• The DEEP Groth Strip Survey X: Number Density and Luminosity Function of Field E/S0 Galaxies at z < 1
• The Hubble Deep Fields
• Early-Type Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field: The Star Formation History
• The Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey: statistical strong lensing, cosmological parameters, and global properties of galaxy populations
• Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of the CFRS and LDSS Redshift Surveys---III. Field elliptical galaxies at 0.2 < z < 1.0
• The properties of field elliptical galaxies at intermediate redshift. III: the Fundamental Plane and the evolution of stellar populations from z~0.4 to z=0
• The Tolman Surface Brightness Test for the Reality of the Expansion. IV. A Measurement of the Tolman Signal and the Luminosity Evolution of Early-Type Galaxies
• A Measurement of the Cosmological Constant Using Elliptical Galaxies as Strong Gravitational Lenses
• Quantitative Morphological Analysis of the HDF--North and HDF-South. I. Early- and Late-type Luminosity-Size Relations of galaxies out to z~1
• COBE-DMR-Normalized Open CDM Cosmogonies
• The z=0.0912 and z=0.2212 Damped Lyman Alpha Galaxies Along the Sight-Line Toward the Quasar OI 363
• Are There Blue, Massive E/S0s at z < 1 ?: Kinematics of Blue Spheroidal Galaxy Candidates
• The Morphologically Divided Redshift Distribution of Faint Galaxies
• X-ray Point Sources and Radio Galaxies in Clusters of Galaxies
• Formation and evolution of early-type galaxies. II. Models with quasi-cosmological initial conditions
• The HST Medium Deep Survey Cluster Sample: Methodology and Data
• On the buildup of massive early-type galaxies at z<~1. I- Reconciling their hierarchical assembly with mass-downsizing
• The Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 B-Band Parallel Survey: A Study of Galaxy Morphology for 18 < B < 27 mag
• Cooling Flow Star Formation and the Apparent Stellar Ages of Elliptical Galaxies
• The inferred redshift distribution of the faint blue excess
• Formation and Evolution of Early-Type Galaxies: Spectro-Photometry from Cosmo-Chemo-Dynamical Simulations
• An Optical Multicolor System For Measuring Galaxy Redshifts And Spectral Types
• Compact Nuclei in Galaxies at Moderate Redshift: I. Imaging and Spectroscopy