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Title:
The Evolution of the Global Stellar Mass Density at 0<z<3
Authors:
Dickinson, Mark; Papovich, Casey; Ferguson, Henry C.; Budavári, Tamás
Affiliation:
AA(Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218; , .; Visiting Astronomer, Kitt Peak National Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.), AB(Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721; .; Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218; .), AC(Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218; , .), AD(Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218; .)
Publication:
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 587, Issue 1, pp. 25-40. (ApJ Homepage)
Publication Date:
04/2003
Origin:
UCP
ApJ Keywords:
Cosmology: Early Universe, Galaxies: Evolution, Galaxies: High-Redshift, Galaxies: Stellar Content, Infrared: Galaxies
DOI:
10.1086/368111
Bibliographic Code:
2003ApJ...587...25D

Abstract

The buildup of stellar mass in galaxies is the consequence of their past star formation and merging histories. Here we report measurements of rest-frame optical light and calculations of stellar mass at high redshift based on an infrared-selected sample of galaxies from the Hubble Deep Field-North. The bright envelope of rest-frame B-band galaxy luminosities is similar in the range 0<z<3, and the comoving luminosity density is constant to within a factor of 3 over that redshift range. However, galaxies at higher redshifts are bluer, and stellar population modeling indicates that they had significantly lower mass-to-light ratios than those of present-day L* galaxies. This leads to a global stellar mass density, Ω*(z), that rises with time from z=3 to the present. This measurement essentially traces the integral of the cosmic star formation history that has been the subject of previous investigations. Between 50% and 75% of the present-day stellar mass density had formed by z~1, but at z~2.7 we find that only 3%-14% of today's stars were present. This increase in Ω* with time is broadly consistent with observations of the evolving global star formation rate, once dust extinction is taken into account, but is steeper at 1<z<3 than predicted by some recent semianalytic models of galaxy formation. The observations appear to be inconsistent with scenarios in which the bulk of stars in present-day galactic spheroids formed at z>>2.

Based on observations taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HST), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.

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