The Ages of Passive Galaxies in a z=1.62 Protocluster Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. We present a study of the relation between galaxy stellar age and mass for 14 members of the z = 1.62 protocluster IRC 0218, using multiband imaging and HST G102 and G141 grism spectroscopy. Using UVJ colors to separate galaxies into star-forming and quiescent populations, we find that, at stellar masses M 1010.85 M, the quiescent fraction in the protocluster is fQ = 1.0-0.37+0.00, consistent with a 2 enhancement relative to the field value, fQ = 0.45-0.03+0.03. At masses 1010.2 M M 1010.85 M, fQ in the cluster is fQ = 0.40-0.18+0.20, consistent with the field value of fQ = 0.28-0.02+0.02. Using galaxy Dn (4000)values derived from the G102 spectroscopy, we find no relation between galaxy stellar age and mass. These results may reflect the impact of merger-driven mass redistribution - which is plausible, as this cluster is known to host many dry mergers. Alternately, they may imply that the trend in fQ in IRC 0218 was imprinted over a short timescale in the protocluster's assembly history. Comparing our results with those of other high-redshift studies and studies of clusters at z 1, we determine that our observed relation between fQ and stellar mass only mildly evolves between z 1.6 and z 1, and only at stellar masses M 1010.85 M. Both the z 1 and z 1.6 results are in agreement that the red sequence in dense environments was already populated at high redshift, z 3, placing constraints on the mechanism(s) responsible for quenching in dense environments at z 1.5.

published proceedings

  • ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL

altmetric score

  • 2

author list (cited authors)

  • Lee-Brown, D. B., Rudnick, G. H., Momcheva, I. G., Papovich, C., Lotz, J. M., Tran, K., ... Farrah, D.

citation count

  • 25

complete list of authors

  • Lee-Brown, Donald B||Rudnick, Gregory H||Momcheva, Ivelina G||Papovich, Casey||Lotz, Jennifer M||Tran, Kim-Vy H||Henke, Brittany||Willmer, Christopher NA||Brammer, Gabriel B||Brodwin, Mark||Dunlop, James||Farrah, Duncan

publication date

  • July 2017