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Maki Sekiguchi

Publications and source records attributed to Maki Sekiguchi.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Wide-field Survey around Local Group Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy Leo II: Spatial Distribution of Stellar Content

We carried out a wide-field V, I imaging survey of the Local Group dwarf spheroidal galaxy Leo II using the Subaru Prime Focus Camera on the 8.2-m Subaru Telescope. The survey covered an area of 26.67 x 26.67 arcmin^2, far beyond the tidal radius of Leo II (8.63 arcmin), down to the limiting magnitude of V ~26, which is roughly 1 mag deeper than the turn-off point of the main sequence stars of Leo II. Radial number density profiles of bright and faint red giant branch (RGB) stars were found to change their slopes at around the tidal radius, and extend beyond the tidal radius with shallower slopes. A smoothed surface brightness map of Leo II suggests the existence of a small substructure of globular cluster luminosity beyond the tidal radius. We investigated the properties of the stellar population by means of the color-magnitude diagram. The horizontal branch (HB) morphology index shows a radial gradient in which red HB stars are more concentrated than blue HB stars, which is common to many Local Group dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The color distribution of RGB stars around the mean RGB sequence shows a larger dispersion at the center than in the outskirts, indicating a mixture of stellar populations at the center and a more homogeneous population in the outskirts. Based on the age estimation using subgiant branch (SGB) stars, we found that although the major star formation took place ~8 Gyr ago, a considerable stellar population younger than 8 Gyr is found at the center; such a younger population is insignificant in the outskirts.

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Morphological Classification of Galaxies using Photometric Parameters: the Concentration index versus the Coarseness parameter

We devise improved photometric parameters for the morphological classification of galaxies using a bright sample from the First Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. In addition to using an elliptical aperture concentration index for classification, we introduce a new texture parameter, coarseness, which quantifies deviations from smooth galaxy isophotes. The elliptical aperture concentration index produces morphological classifications that are in appreciably better agreement with visual classifications than those based on circular apertures. With the addition of the coarseness parameter,the success rate of classifying galaxies into early and late types increases to \~88% with respect to the reference visual classification. A reasonably high success rate ~68% is also attained in classifying galaxies into three types, early-type galaxies (E+S0), early- (Sa+Sb) and late- (Sc+Sdm+Im) type spiral galaxies.

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Discovery of a Large Scale Clumpy Structure around the Lynx Supercluster at z~1.27

We report the discovery of a probable large scale structure composed of many galaxy clumps around the known twin clusters at z=1.26 and z=1.27 in the Lynx region. Our analysis is based on deep, panoramic, and multi-colour imaging (26.4'x24.1') in VRi'z'-bands with the Suprime-Cam on the 8.2m Subaru telescope. This unique, deep and wide-field imaging data-set allows us for the first time to map out the galaxy distribution in the highest redshift supercluster known. We apply a photometric redshift technique to extract plausible cluster members at z~1.27 down to i'=26.15 (5sigma) corresponding to M*+2.5 at this redshift. From the 2-D distribution of these photometrically selected galaxies, we newly identify seven candidates of galaxy groups or clusters where the surface density of red galaxies is significantly high (>5sigma), in addition to the two known clusters. These candidates show clear red colour-magnitude sequences consistent with a passive evolution model, which suggests the existence of additional high density regions around the Lynx superclusters.

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SDSS J115517.35+634622.0: A Newly Discovered Gravitationally Lensed Quasar

We report the discovery of SDSSJ115517.35+634622.0, a previously unknown gravitationally lensed quasar. The lens system exhibits two images of a $z = 2.89$ quasar, with an image separation of $1{\farcs}832 \pm 0.007$ . Near-IR imaging of the system reveals the presence of the lensing galaxy between the two quasar images. Based on absorption features seen in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectrum, we determine a lens galaxy redshift of $z = 0.1756$. The lens is rather unusual in that one of the quasar images is only $0{\farcs}22\pm0{\farcs}07$ ($\sim 0.1 R_{\rm eff}$) from the center of the lens galaxy and photometric modeling indicates that this image is significantly brighter than predicted by a SIS model. This system was discovered in the course of an ongoing search for strongly lensed quasars in the dataset from the SDSS.

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The Morphology-Density Relation in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We have studied the morphology-density relation and morphology--cluster-centric-radius relation using a volume limited sample (0.05$<z<$0.1, $Mr^*<-$20.5) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. We found there are two characteristic changes in both the morphology-density and the morphology-radius relations, suggesting two different mechanisms are responsible for the relations. In the sparsest regions (below 1 Mpc$^{-2}$ or outside of 1 virial radius), both relations become less noticeable, suggesting the responsible physical mechanisms for galaxy morphological change require denser environment. In the intermediate density regions (density between 1 and 6 Mpc$^{-2}$ or virial radius between 0.3 and 1), intermediate-type fractions increase toward denser regions, whereas late-disc fractions decrease. In the densest regions (above 6 Mpc$^{-2}$ or inside of 0.3 virial radius), intermediate-type fractions decrease radically and early-type fractions increase in turn. This is a contrasting result to that in intermediate regions and it suggests that yet another mechanism is more responsible for the morphological change in these regions. We also compared the morphology-density relation from the SDSS (0.01$<z<$0.054) with that of the MORPHS data ($z\sim$0.5). Two relations lie on top of each other, suggesting that the morphology-density relation was already established at $z\sim$0.5 as is in the present universe.

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The Environment of Passive Spiral Galaxies in the SDSS

In previous work on galaxy clusters, several authors reported a discovery of an unusual population of galaxies, which have spiral morphologies, but do not show any star formation activity. These galaxies are called ``passive spirals'', and have been interesting since it has been difficult to understand the existence of such galaxies. Using a volume limited sample (0.05<z<0.1 and Mr<-20.5; 25813 galaxies) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data, we have found 73 (0.28$\pm$0.03%) passive spiral galaxies and studied their environments. It is found that passive spiral galaxies live in local galaxy density 1-2 Mpc$^{-2}$ and 1-10 cluster-centric virial radius. Thus the origins of passive spiral galaxies are likely to be cluster related. These characteristic environments coincide with the previously reported environment where galaxy star formation rate suddenly declines and the so-called morphology-density relation turns. It is likely that the same physical mechanism is responsible for all of these observational results. The existence of passive spiral galaxies suggests that a physical mechanism that works calmly is preferred to dynamical origins such as major merger/interaction since such a mechanism can destroy spiral arm structures. Compared with observed cluster galaxy evolution such as the Butcher-Oemler effect and the morphological Butcher-Oemler effect, passive spiral galaxies are likely to be a galaxy population in transition between red, elliptical/S0 galaxies in low redshift clusters and blue, spiral galaxies more numerous in higher redshift clusters.

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Composite Luminosity Functions Based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey "Cut & Enhance" Galaxy Cluster Catalog

We present here results on the composite luminosity functions of galaxies in the clusters of galaxies selected from the SDSS Cut and Enhance cluster catalog (CE; Goto et al. 2001). We construct the composite luminosity function in the five SDSS bands, u,g,r,i and z, using 204 CE clusters ranging from z=0.02 to z=0.25. We use photometric redshifts to construct composite luminosity functions. The robustness of the weighting scheme was tested using Monte Carlo simulation. We find the slope of composite LFs become flatter toward redder color band. Comparing with field LFs of SDSS (Blanton et al. 2001), cluster LFs have brighter characteristic magnitude and flatter slopes in g, r, i and z bands. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the cluster LF has two distinct underlying populations i.e. the bright end of the LF is dominated by bright early types that follow a gaussian--like luminosity distribution, while the faint--end of the cluster LF is a steep power--law like function dominated by star--forming (bluer) galaxies. We also study the composite luminosity functions for early--type and late--type galaxies using profile fits, a concentration parameter and u-r color to classify galaxy morphology. The strong dependence of LF on galaxy morphology is found.The faint end slope of the LF is always flatter for early--type galaxies than late--type regardless of passband and methodology. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the cluster region are dominated by bright elliptical galaxies.

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The Morphological Butcher-Oemler effect in the SDSS Cut&Enhance Galaxy Cluster Catalog

We investigate the evolution of the fractions of late type cluster galaxies as a function of redshift, using one of the largest, most uniform cluster samples available. The sample consists of 514 clusters of galaxies in the range 0.02<z<0.3 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Cut & Enhance galaxy cluster catalog. This catalog was created using a single automated cluster finding algorithm on uniform data from a single telescope, with accurate CCD photometry, thus, minimizing selection biases. We use four independent methods to analyze the evolution of the late type galaxy fraction. Specifically, we select late type galaxies based on: restframe g-r color, u-r color, galaxy profile fitting and concentration index. The first criterion corresponds to the one used in the classical Butcher-Oemler analyses. The last three criteria are more sensitive to the morphological type of the galaxies. In all four cases, we find an increase in the fraction of late type galaxies with increasing redshift, significant at the 99.9% level. The results confirm that cluster galaxies do change colors with redshift (the Butcher-Oemler effect) and, in addition, they change their morphology to later-type toward higher redshift -- indicating a morphological equivalent of the Butcher-Oemler effect. We also find a tendency of richer clusters to have lower fractions of late type galaxies. The trend is consistent with a ram pressure stripping model, where richer clusters have more effective ram pressure due to their higher temperature.

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SDSS J092455.87+021924.9: an Interesting Gravitationally Lensed Quasar from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We report the discovery of a new gravitationally lensed quasar from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, SDSS J092455.87+021924.9 (SDSS J0924+0219). This object was selected from among known SDSS quasars by an algorithm that was designed to select another known SDSS lensed quasar (SDSS 1226-0006A,B). Five separate components, three of which are unresolved, are identified in photometric follow-up observations obtained with the Magellan Consortium's 6.5m Walter Baade telescope at Las Campanas Observatory. Two of the unresolved components (designated A and B) are confirmed to be quasars with z=1.524; the velocity difference is less than 100 km sec^{-1} according to spectra taken with the W. M. Keck Observatory's Keck II telescope on Mauna Kea. A third stellar component, designated C, has the colors of a quasar with redshift similar to components A and B. The maximum separation of the point sources is 1.78". The other two sources, designated G and D, are resolved. Component G appears to be the best candidate for the lensing galaxy. Although component D is near the expected position of the fourth lensed component in a four image lens system, its properties are not consistent with being the image of a quasar at z~1.5. Nevertheless, the identical redshifts of components A and B and the presence of component C strongly suggest that this object is a gravitational lens. Our observations support the idea that a foreground object reddens the fourth lensed component and that another unmodeled effect (such as micro- or milli-lensing) demagnificates it, but we cannot rule out the possibility that SDSS0924+0219 is an example of the relatively rare class of ``three component'' lens systems.

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Hdelta-Selected Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey I: The Catalog

[Abridged] We present here a new and homogeneous sample of 3340 galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) based solely on the observed strength of their Hdelta absorption line. These galaxies are commonly known as ``post-starburst'' or ``E+A'' galaxies, and the study of these galaxies has been severely hampered by the lack of a large, statistical sample of such galaxies. In this paper, we rectify this problem by selecting a sample of galaxies which possess an absorption Hdelta equivalent width of EW(Hdelta_max) - Delta EW(Hdelta_max) > 4A from 106682 galaxies in the SDSS. We have performed extensive tests on our catalog including comparing different methodologies of measuring the Hdelta absorption and studying the effects of stellar absorption, dust extinction, emission-filling and measurement error. The measured abundance of our Hdelta-selected (HDS) galaxies is 2.6 +/- 0.1% of all galaxies within a volume-limited sample of 0.05<z<0.1 and M(r*)<-20.5, which is consistent with previous studies of such galaxies in the literature. We find that only 25 of our HDS galaxies in this volume-limited sample (3.5+/-0.7%) show no evidence for OII and Halpha emission, thus indicating that true E+A (or k+a) galaxies are extremely rare objects at low redshift, i.e., only 0.09+/-0.02% of all galaxies in this volume-limited sample are true E+A galaxies. In contrast, 89+/-5% of our HDS galaxies in the volume-limited sample have significant detections of the OII and Halpha emission lines. We find 27 galaxies in our volume-limited HDS sample that possess no detectable OII emission, but do however possess detectable Halpha emission. These galaxies may be dusty star-forming galaxies. We provide the community with this new catalog of Hdelta-selected galaxies to aid in the understanding of these galaxies.

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Subaru Prime Focus Camera -- Suprime-Cam --

We have built an 80-mega pixels (10240 X 8192) mosaic CCD camera, called Suprime-Cam, for the wide-field prime focus of the 8.2 m Subaru telescope. Suprime-Cam covers a field of view 34' X 27', a unique facility among the the 8-10 m class telescopes, with a resolution of 0.''202 per pixel. The focal plane consists of ten high-resistivity 2k X 4k CCDs developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, which are cooled by a large stirling-cycle cooler. The CCD readout electronics was designed to be scalable, which allows the multiple read-out of tens of CCDs. It takes 50 seconds to readout entire arrays. We designed a filter-exchange mechanism of the jukebox type that can hold up to ten large filters (205 X 170 X 15 mm^3). The wide-field corrector is basically a three-lens Wynne-type, but has a new type of atmospheric dispersion corrector. The corrector provides a flat focal plane and an un-vignetted field of view of 30' in diameter. The achieved co-planarity of the focal array mosaic is smaller than 30 micron peak-to-peak, which realizes mostly the seeing limited image over the entire field. The median seeing in the Ic-band, measured over one year and a half, is 0.''61. The PSF anisotropy in Suprime-Cam images, estimated by stellar ellipticities, is about 2% under this median seeing condition. At the time of commissioning, Suprime-Cam had the largest survey speed, which is defined as the field of view multiplied by the primary mirror area of the telescope, among those cameras built for sub-arcsecond imaging.

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A Search for Lyman alpha Emitters at Redshift 3.7

We present the results of a survey for emission-line objects based on optical intermediate-band ($λ_{\rm c}$ = 5736 Å~ and $Δλ$ = 280 Å) and broad-band ($B$, $V$, $R$, and $i^\prime$) observations of the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field on the 8.2 m Subaru telescope with the Subaru Prime Focus Camera, Suprime-Cam. All the data were obtained during the guaranteed time observations of the Suprime-Cam instrument. The intermediate-band image covered a sky area with 10\minpoint62 $\times 12\minpoint40 \approx 132$ arcmin$^2$ in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field (Ouchi et al.). Using this image, we have found 23 emission-line sources whose observed emission-line equivalent widths are greater than 250 Å. Their optical multicolor properties indicate that six emission-line sources are Ly$α$ emitters at $z \approx$ 3.7 ($Δz \approx 0.22$). They are either intense starburst galaxies or active galactic nuclei like quasars at $z \approx$ 3.7. Two more emission-line sources may also be Ly$α$ emitters at $z \approx$ 3.7 although their multicolor properties are marginal. Among the remaining 15 emission-line objects, eight objects appear strong emission-line galaxies at lower redshift; e.g., [O {\sc ii}] $λ$3727 emitters at $z \approx 0.54$, H$β$ at $z \approx 0.18$, or [O {\sc iii}]$λ$5007 emitters at $z \approx 0.15$. The remaining seven objects are unclassified because they are too faint to be detected in broad-band images. We discuss observational properties of these strong emission-line sources. In particular, our data allow us to estimate the star formation density at $z \approx 3.7$ for the first time.

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The Cut & Enhance method : selecting clusters of galaxies from the SDSS commissioning data

We describe an automated method, the Cut & Enhance method (CE) for detecting clusters of galaxies in multi-color optical imaging surveys. This method uses simple color cuts, combined with a density enhancement algorithm, to up-weight pairs of galaxies that are close in both angular separation and color. The method is semi-parametric since it uses minimal assumptions about cluster properties in order to minimize possible biases. No assumptions are made about the shape of clusters, their radial profile or their luminosity function. The method is successful in finding systems ranging from poor to rich clusters of galaxies, of both regular and irregular shape. We determine the selection function of the CE method via extensive Monte Carlo simulations which use both the real, observed background of galaxies and a randomized background of galaxies. We use position shuffled and color shuffled data to perform the false positive test. We have also visually checked all the clusters detected by the CE method. We apply the CE method to the 350 deg^2 of the SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey) commissioning data and construct a SDSS CE galaxy cluster catalog with an estimated redshift and richness for each cluster. The CE method is compared with other cluster selection methods used on SDSS data such as the Matched Filter (Postman et al. 1996, Kim et al. 2001), maxBCG technique (Annis et al. 2001) and Voronoi Tessellation (Kim et al. 2001). The CE method can be adopted for cluster selection in any multi-color imaging surveys.

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Discovery of Very Extended Emission-Line Region around the Seyfert 2 Galaxy NGC 4388

We found a very large, 35 kpc, emission-line region around the Seyfert type 2 galaxy NGC 4388, using deep narrow-band imaging with the prime focus camera (Suprime-Cam) of the Subaru telescope. This region consists of many faint gas clouds or filaments, and extends northeastwards from the galaxy. The typical H-alpha luminosity L(H-alpha) of the clouds is 10^37 erg s^-1, and the total L(H-alpha) of the region within 10 kpc from the nucleus is 2 x 10^38 erg s^-1, which corresponds to an ionized gas mass of 10^5 M_solar. The map of the emission-line intensity ratio I([OIII])/I(H-alpha) indicates that the inner (r < 12 kpc) region of the VEELR may be excited by nuclear ionizing radiation. The excitation mechanism of the outer (r > 12 kpc) region is unclear, but it is likely that the nuclear radiation is also a dominant source of its ionization. We discuss the origin of the ionized gas. Two plausible origins of the gas in the VEELR are (i) the tidal debris resulting from a past interaction with a gas-rich dwarf galaxy, i.e., a minor merger, or (ii) the interstellar medium of NGC 4388, stripped by the ram pressure of the hot intracluster medium of the Virgo cluster.

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Galaxy Population in a Cluster of Galaxies around the Radio Galaxy 3C 324 at z=1.2

We discuss the properties of galaxies around the radio galaxy 3C 324 at z=1.2 based on BVRIK' multi-band imaging data. We have applied a photometric-redshift technique to objects in the 3C 324 field, and identified 35 objects as plausible cluster members. We have found that red and luminous members are concentrated in a small region enclosed by a circle of 40" radius (0.33 Mpc at z=1.2 for Ω_0=0.3, λ_0=0.7, H_0=70km/s/Mpc cosmology) from the 3C 324 galaxy. The 3C 324 cluster is probably much more compact in size compared with the local clusters. We constructed a K'-band luminosity function of the cluster members and fit a Schechter function, and found the characteristic magnitude to be K*_{AB}=20.2+-0.6. This value is consistent with the extrapolation of the pure passive evolution seen for z<1 clusters. We have identified eight bright galaxies which form a red color-magnitude sequence. The slope of the sequence is consistent with the passive evolution model down to K'_{AB}<22; we also found that there is no clear age variation in these bright red galaxies. However, seven out of these eight galaxies exhibit a significant excess in the rest UV light with respect to the passive evolution model. This may suggest that the massive early-type galaxies in this high-redshift cluster are still forming stars to some extent. We have confirmed a truncation of the color-magnitude sequence at K'_{AB}\sim22; faint passively-evolving galaxies may not yet be present in this cluster at z\sim1.2. The overall color distribution of the cluster members, selected by the photometric redshift technique, is found to be very broad. We derived the fraction of blue galaxies in this cluster following a

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Statistical Properties of Lyman Break Galaxies at z~4

We study the luminosity function and the correlation function of about 1200 z~4 Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) with i'<26 that are photometrically selected from deep BRi' imaging data of a 618 arcmin^2 area in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field taken with Subaru Prime Focus Camera. The contamination and completeness of our LBG sample are evaluated, on the basis of the Hubble Deep Field-North (HDF-N) objects, to be 17% and 45%, respectively. We derive the UV (rest 1700A) luminosity functions (LFs) and find a large population of UV-luminous galaxies at z~4. The LFs of the red and blue subsamples imply that the bright LBGs are redder in the UV continuum than the average color of the LBGs. Then we calculate the correlation function over theta = 2''-1000'' and find that it is fitted fairly well by a power law, omega(theta)=A_omega theta^(-0.8), with A_omega=0.71 +/- 0.26. We estimate the correlation length r_0 (in comoving units) of the two-point spatial correlation function xi(r) = (r/r_0)^(-1.8) to be r_0=2.7 +0.5/-0.6 h^(-1) Mpc (Omega_m=0.3 and Omega_Lambda=0.7). The correlation function shows an excess of omega (theta) on small scales (theta < 5''), departing from the power-law fit at > 3 sigma significance level. Interpreting this as being due to galaxy mergers, we evaluate the fraction of galaxies undergoing mergers to be 3.0 +/- 0.9%, which is significantly smaller than those of galaxies at intermediate redshifts.

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Clustering Properties of Galaxies at z~4 in the Subaru/XMM Deep Survey Field

We study the clustering properties of about 1200 z~4 Lyman Break Galaxy (LBG) candidates with i'<26 which are selected by color from deep BRi' imaging data of a 618 arcmin^2 area in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field taken with Subaru Prime Focus Camera. The contamination and completeness of our LBG sample are evaluated, on the basis of the Hubble Deep Field North (HDFN) objects, to be 17% and 45%, respectively. We derive the angular correlation function over theta = 2''-1000'', and find that it is fitted fairly well by a power law, omega(theta)=A_omega theta^{-0.8}, with A_omega = 0.71 +/- 0.26. We then calculate the correlation length r0 (in comoving units) of the two-point spatial correlation function xi(r) = (r/r0)^{-1.8} from A_omega using the redshift distribution of LBGs derived from the HDFN, and find r0=2.7 (+0.5/-0.6) h^{-1} Mpc in a Lambda-dominated universe (Omega_m=0.3 and Omega_Lambda=0.7). This is twice larger than the correlation length of the dark matter at z~4 predicted from an analytic model by Peacock & Dodds but about twice smaller than that of bright galaxies predicted by a semi-analytic model of Baugh et al. We find an excess of omega(theta) on small scales (theta < 5'') departing from the power law fit over 3 sigma significance levels. Interpreting this as due to galaxy mergers, we estimate the fraction of galaxies undergoing mergers in our LBG sample to be 3.0 +/- 0.9%, which is significantly smaller than those of galaxies at intermediate redshifts.

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Probing the evolution of early-type galaxies using multi-colour number counts and redshift distributions

We investigate pure luminosity evolution models for early-type (elliptical and S0) galaxies (i.e., no number density change or morphology transition), and examine whether these models are consistent with observed number counts in the B, I and K bands and redshift distributions of two samples of faint galaxies selected in the I and K bands. The models are characterized by the star formation time scale $τ_{SF}$ and the time $t_{gw}$ when galactic wind blows in addition to several other conventional parameters. We find the single-burst model ($τ_{SF}$=0.1 Gyr and $t_{gw}$=0.353 Gyr), which is known to reproduce the photometric properties of early-type galaxies in clusters, is inconsistent with redshift distributions of early-type galaxies in the field environment due to overpredictions of galaxies at $z\gsim1.4$ even with strong extinction which is at work until $t_{gw}$. In order for dust extinction to be more effective, we change $τ_{SF}$ and $t_{gw}$ as free parameters, and find that models with $τ_{SF}\gsim0.5$ Gyr and $t_{gw}>1.0$ Gyr can be made consistent with both the observed redshift distributions and number counts, if we introduce strong extinction $(E(B-V)\geq1$ as a peak value). These results suggest that early-type galaxies in the field environment do not have the same evolutionary history as described by the single-burst model.

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