The Morphological Evolution, AGN Fractions, Dust Content, Environments, and Downsizing of Massive Green Valley Galaxies at 0.5 < z < 2.5 in 3D-HST/CANDELS

To explore the evolutionary connection among red, green, and blue galaxy populations, based on a sample of massive ( ) galaxies at 0.5 < z < 2.5 in five 3D-HST/CANDELS fields, we investigate the dust content, morphologies, structures, active galactic nucleus (AGN) fractions, and environments o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2018-03, Vol.855 (1), p.10
Main Authors: Gu, Yizhou, Fang, Guanwen, Yuan, Qirong, Cai, Zhenyi, Wang, Tao
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Active galactic nuclei
Astrophysics
Attenuation
Cosmic dust
Downsizing
Dust
Feedback
Galactic evolution
Galaxies
galaxies: evolution
galaxies: high-redshift
galaxies: structure
Morphology
Phase transitions
Populations
Quenching
Star & galaxy formation
Star formation
Stars & galaxies
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Summary:To explore the evolutionary connection among red, green, and blue galaxy populations, based on a sample of massive ( ) galaxies at 0.5 < z < 2.5 in five 3D-HST/CANDELS fields, we investigate the dust content, morphologies, structures, active galactic nucleus (AGN) fractions, and environments of these three populations. Green valley galaxies are found to have intermediate dust attenuation and reside in the middle of the regions occupied by quiescent and star-forming galaxies in the UVJ diagram. Compared with blue and red galaxy populations at z < 2, green galaxies have intermediate compactness and morphological parameters. The above findings seem to favor the scenario that green galaxies are at a transitional phase when star-forming galaxies are being quenched into quiescent status. The green galaxies at z < 2 show the highest AGN fraction, suggesting that AGN feedback may have played an important role in star formation quenching. For the massive galaxies at 2 < z < 2.5, both red and green galaxies are found to have a similarly higher AGN fraction than the blue ones, which implies that AGN feedback may help to keep quiescence of red galaxies at z > 2. A significant environmental difference is found between green and red galaxies at z < 1.5. Green and blue galaxies at z > 0.5 seem to have similar local density distributions, suggesting that environment quenching is not the major mechanism to cease star formation at z > 0.5. The fractions of three populations as functions of mass support a "downsizing" quenching picture that the bulk of star formation in more massive galaxies is completed earlier than that of lower-mass galaxies.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/aaad0b