arXiv · astro-ph/0502228
Mass-to-Light Ratios of Field Early-Type Galaxies at z~1 from Ultra-Deep Spectroscopy: Evidence for Mass-dependent Evolution
Abstract
We present an analysis of the Fundamental Plane for a sample of 27 field early-type galaxies in the redshift range 0.6 2 x 10^11 Msol$, we find no significant difference between the evolution of field and cluster galaxies: $Delta ln (M/L_B) = -1.20+/-0.18z for field galaxies and $Delta ln (M/L_B) = -1.12+/-0.06z$ for cluster galaxies. The relation between the measured M/L evolution and mass is partially due to selection effects. However, even when taking selection effects into account, we still find a relation between M/L evolution and mass, which is most likely caused by a lower mean age and a larger intrinsic scatter for low mass galaxies. Results from lensing early-type galaxies, which are mass-selected, show a very similar trend with mass. This, combined with our findings, provides evidence for down-sizing. Previous studies of the rate of evolution of field early-type galaxies found a large range of mutually exclusive values. We show that these differences are largely caused by the differences between fitting methods. (Abridged)
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A. van der Wel, M. Franx, P. G. van Dokkum, H. -W. Rix, G. D. Illingworth, P. Rosati. 2005-02-14. Mass-to-Light Ratios of Field Early-Type Galaxies at z~1 from Ultra-Deep Spectroscopy: Evidence for Mass-dependent Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1086/430464
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