We study the nature of faint, red-selected galaxies at z ~ 2-3 using the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) and Spitzer IRAC photometry. We detect candidate galaxies to H < 26 mag, probing lower-luminosity (lower mass) galaxies at these redshifts. We identify 32 galaxies satisfying the (J - H) > 1.0 mag color selection, 16 of which have unblended [3.6um] and [4.5um] IRAC photometry. We derive photometric redshifts, masses, and stellar population parameters for these objects. We find that the selected objects span a diverse range of properties over a large range of redshifts, 1 < z < 3.5. A substantial fraction (11/32) appear to be lower-redshift (z < 2.5), heavily obscured dusty galaxies or edge-on spiral galaxies, while others (12/32) appear to be galaxies at 2 < z < 3.5 whose light at rest-frame optical wavelengths is dominated by evolved stellar populations. Interestingly, by including Spitzer data many candidates for galaxies dominated by evolved stellar populations are rejected, and for only a subset of the sample (6/16) do the data favor this interpretation. We place an upper limit on the space and stellar mass density of candidate massive evolved galaxies. The z > 2.5 objects that are dominated by evolved stellar populations have a space density at most one-third that of z ~ 0 red, early-type galaxies. Therefore, at least two-thirds of present-day early-type galaxies assemble or evolve into their current configuration at redshifts below 2.5. We find a dearth of candidates for low-mass galaxies at 1.5 < z < 3 that are dominated by passively evolving stellar populations even though the data should be sensitive to them; thus, at these redshifts, galaxies whose light is dominated by evolved stellar populations are restricted to only those galaxies that have assembled high stellar mass.[Abridged]
We report on some aspects of the current status of our efforts to establish properties of faint galaxies by applying our photometric redshift technique to faint galaxies in the HDF and HDF-S WFPC2 and NICMOS fields.
The faint end of the differential galaxy number counts, n(m), in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) North has been determined for the F450W, F606W, and F814W filters by means of surface-brightness fluctuation (SBF) measurements. This technique allows us to explore n(m) beyond the limiting magnitude of the HDF, providing new, stronger constraints on the faint end of n(m). This has allowed us to test the validity of previous number count studies and to produce a new determination of the faint end of n(m) for magnitudes fainter than 28.8 in the AB system and to extend this estimate down to 31. This valu…
The longstanding faint blue galaxy problem is gradually subsiding as a result of technological advancement, most notably from high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope imaging. In particular two categorical facts have recently been established, these are: 1) The excess faint blue galaxies are of irregular morphologies, and, 2) the majority of these irregulars occur at redshifts 1 < z < 2. These conclusions are based on the powerful combination of morphological and photometric redshift data for all galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field to I < 26. Our interpretation is that the faint blue galaxy excess…
We explore the nature of the faint blue objects in the Hubble Deep Field South. We have derived proper motions for the point sources in the Hubble Deep Field South using a 3 year baseline. Combining our proper motion measurements with spectral energy distribution fitting enabled us to identify 4 quasars and 42 stars, including 3 white dwarf candidates. Two of these white dwarf candidates, HDFS 1444 and 895, are found to display significant proper motion, 21.1 $\pm$ 7.9 mas/yr and 34.9 $\pm$ 8.0 mas/yr, and are consistent with being thick disk or halo white dwarfs located at ~2 kpc. The other f…
The deepest optical image of the sky, the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in December 1995, has been compared to a similar image taken in December 1997. Two very faint, blue, isolated and unresolved objects are found to display a substantial apparent proper motion, 23+/-5 mas/yr and 26+/-5 mas/yr; a further three objects at the detection limit of the second epoch observations may also be moving. Galactic structure models predict a general absence of stars in the color-magnitude range in which these objects are found. However, these observations are consi…
Detection and photometry of sources in the U_n, G, R, and K_s bands in a 9x9 arcmin^2 region of the sky, centered on the Hubble Deep Field, are described. The data permit construction of complete photometric catalogs to roughly U_n=25, G=26, R=25.5 and K_s=20 mag, and significant photometric measurements somewhat fainter. The galaxy number density is 1.3x10^5 deg^{-2} to R=25.0 mag. Galaxy number counts have slopes dlog N/dm=0.42, 0.33, 0.27 and 0.31 in the U_n, G, R and K_s bands, consistent with previous studies and the trend that fainter galaxies are, on average, bluer. Galaxy catalogs sele…
We describe our application of broad-band photometric redshift techniques to faint galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field. To magnitudes AB(8140) < 26, the accuracy of the photometric redshifts is a few tenths and the reliability of the photometric redshifts approaches 100%. At fainter magnitudes the effects of photometric error on the photometric redshifts can be rigorously quantified and accounted for. We argue that broad-band photometric redshift techniques can be applied to accurately and reliably estimate redshifts of galaxies that are up to many magnitudes fainter than the spectroscopic limit…
We report the results of fluctuation analysis of the off-source field from the 1 Million second Chandra observation of the Hubble Deep Field-North (HDF-N). The distribution of the counts in cells has been compared with the expectations from the Log N - Log S model to constrain the behavior of the source number density down to a factor of several lower than the source-detection limit. Our results show that the number counts in the soft band (0.5-2 [keV]) continue to grow down to Sx = 7e-18 [erg s^{-1} cm^{-2}], possibly suggesting the emergence of a new population and agree well with a predicti…
Using data derived from the deepest and finest angular resolution images of the universe yet acquired by astronomers at optical wavelengths using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in two postage-stamp sections of the sky (Williams et al. 1996a,b), plus simple geometrical and scaling arguments, we demonstrate that the faint blue population of point-source objects detected on those two fields (Méndez et al. 1996) could actually be ancient halo white dwarfs at distances closer than about 2 kpc from the Sun. This finding has profound implications, as the mass density of the detected objects would a…
We have developed a general data reduction technique for ISOCAM data coming from various deep surveys of faint galaxies. In order to reach the fundamental limits of the camera (due to the background photon noise and the readout noise), we have devised several steps in the reduction processes that transform the raw data to a sky map which is then used for point source and sligthly extended source extraction. We show illustrative examples of our present scheme by using data taken from the publicly available Hubble Deep Field ISOCAM survey in order to demonstrate its characteristics. More than th…
Photometric redshifts for galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field are measured. Luminosity functions show steepening of the faint-end slope and mild brightening of M* out to z~3, followed by a decline at higher z; an excess of faint, star-forming galaxies is seen at low z. Our results are consistent with the formation of large galaxies at z=2-3, followed by that of dwarfs at z<1.
We have obtained redshifts and infrared images for a sample of faint B2/6C radio sources whose fluxes are about six times fainter than those of sources in the bright 3C sample. We now have unambiguous redshifts for 90% of the sources, making this the first faint radio sample with such complete redshift information. We find that the infrared Hubble diagrams (K versus z) of the 3C sample and the B2/6C sample are similar at a low redshift (z < 0.6), but by a redshift about 1 the 6C/B2 galaxies are on average about 0.6 mags fainter in the K-band than 3C galaxies at the same redshift. This suggests…
The Australia Telescope Hubble Deep Field-South (ATHDFS) survey of the Hubble Deep Field South reaches sensitivities of ~10 miceoJyJy at 1.4, 2.5, 5.2 and 8.7 GHz, making the ATHDFS one of the deepest surveys ever performed with the Australia Telescope Compact Array. Here we present the optical identifications of the ATHDFS radio sources using data from the literature. We find that ~66% of the radio sources have optical counterparts to I = 23.5 mag. Deep HST imaging of the area identifies a further 12% of radio sources. We present new spectroscopic observations for 98 of the radio sources, and…
We present a catalog of photometry and photometric redshifts of 335 faint objects in the HDF-S NICMOS field. The analysis is based on (1) infrared images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) using the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrograph (NICMOS) with the F110W, F160W, and F222M filters, (2) an optical image obtained with HST using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) with no filter, and (3) optical images obtained with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) with U, B, V, R, and I filters. The primary utility of the catalog of phot…
We present a study of the galaxies found in the Hubble Deep Field. A high proportion of HDF galaxies are undergoing a strong episode of star formation, as evidenced by their very blue colours. A wide range of morphological types is found, with a high proportion of peculiar and merger morphologies. Fitting the multiband spectra with redshifted SEDs of galaxy types E to HII, we predict the spectral types and redshifts of galaxies detected in the HDF. We find a median redshift of 1.6, with $68\%$ having $z > 1$ and $31\%$ with $z >2$. The I-band absolute magnitude distributions as a function of g…
We have started a survey of galaxies at intermediate redshifts using the HST-STIS parallel fields. Our main goal is to analyse the morphology of faint galaxies in order to estimate the epoch of formation of the Hubble classification sequence. The high resolution of STIS images (0.05'') is ideal for this work and enable us to perform a morphological classification and to analyse the internal structures of galaxies. We find that 40% of the 290 galaxies are early types and that there are more irregulars and ellipticals at the fainter magnitudes.
We compare the galaxy evolution models of Bruzual & Charlot (1993) with the faint galaxy count, size and colour data from the Hubble and Herschel Deep Fields (Metcalfe et al 1996). For qo=0.05, we find that models where the SFR increases exponentially out to z>2 are consistent with all of the observational data. For qo=0.5, such models require an extra population of galaxies which are only seen at high redshift and then rapidly fade or disappear. We find that, whatever the cosmology, the redshift of the faint blue galaxies and hence the epoch of galaxy formation is likely to lie at z>2. We fin…
We combine data from the extremely deep Hubble Space Telescope $U$ (F300W) image obtained using WFPC2 as part of the parallel observations of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field campaign, with $BVi$ images from the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) to identify a sample of Lyman break galaxies in the redshift range $2.0 \lesssim z \lesssim 3.5$. We use recent stellar population synthesis models with a wide variety of ages, metallicities, redshifts, and dust content, and a detailed representation of the \HI cosmic opacity as a function of redshift to model the colors of galaxies in our com…
In this paper the counts and colors of the faint galaxies observed in the Hubble Deep Field are fitted by means of simple luminosity evolution models which incorporate a numerous population of fading dwarfs. The observed color distribution of the very faint galaxies allows now to put constrains on the star formation history in dwarfs. It is shown that the star-forming activity in these small systems has to proceed in a gentle way, i.e. through episodes each one lasting much longer than a simple instantaneous burst of star formation. By allowing dwarfs to form stars in this gentle way the numbe…
We analyse the detailed structure of a highly-inclined (i>~80 degrees) disc galaxy which lies within the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF). The unprecedented depth of the UDF data allow disc and extraplanar emission to be reliably traced to surface brightness levels of mu_{V,i,z}~29-30 mag/arcsec^2 (corresponding to rest-frame equivalents of mu_{g,r,i}~28-29 mag/arcsec^2) in this redshift z=0.32 system. We detect excess emission above the disc which is characterised by a moderately-flattened (b/a~0.6) power-law (I proportional to R^(-2.6)). The structure and colour of this component are very simil…
We present a novel way to detect objects when multiband images are available. Typically, object detection is performed in one of the available bands or on a somewhat arbitrarily co-added image. Our technique provides an almost optimal way to use all the color information available. We build up a composite image of the N passbands where each pixel value corresponds to the probability that the given pixel is just sky. By knowing the probability distribution of sky pixels (a chi-square distribution with N degrees of freedom), the data can be used to derive the distribution of pixels dominated by …
We present the faintest spectroscopically confirmed sample of redshift four and five Lyman break galaxies to date. The sample is based on slitless grism spectra of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field region from the GRAPES (Grism ACS Program for Extragalactic Science) and PEARS (Probing Evolution and Reionization Spectroscopically) projects, using the G800L grism on the HST Advanced Camera for Surveys. We report here confirmations of 39 galaxies, pre-selected as candidate Lyman break galaxies using photometric selection criteria. We compare a "traditional" V-dropout selection to a more liberal one (wi…
To circumvent the spatial effects of resolution on galaxy classification, the images of 233 objects of known redshift in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) and its Flanking Fields (FF) that have redshifts in the range 0.20 < z < 1.10 were degraded to the resolution that they would have had if they were all located at a redshift z= 1.00. As in paper XIV of the present series, the effects of shifts in rest wavelength were mitigated by using R-band images for the classification of galaxies with 0.2 < z < 0.6 and I-band images for objects with redshifts 0.6 < z < 1.1. A special effort was made to search …
(Abridged) We present a detailed analysis of the number count and photometric redshift distribution of faint galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), paying a special attention to the selection effects including the cosmological dimming of surface brightness of galaxies. We find a considerably different result from previous studies ignoring the selection effects, and these effects should therefore be taken into account in the analysis. We find that the model of pure luminosity evolution (PLE) of galaxies in the Einstein-de Sitter (EdS) universe predicts much smaller counts than those observed …
We present deep Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS near-infrared and WFPC2 optical imaging of a small region in the core of the distant rich cluster Cl0939+4713 (z=0.41). We compare the optical and near-infrared morphologies of cluster members and find apparent small-scale optical structures within the galaxies which are absent in the near-infrared. We conclude that strong dust obscuration is a common feature in the late-type galaxies in distant clusters. We then concentrate on a sample of ten faint radio galaxies lying within our NICMOS field and selected from a very deep 1.4-GHz VLA map of the cl…
Using the deepest and finest resolution images of the Universe acquired with the Hubble Space Telescope and a similar image taken 7 years later for the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, we have derived proper motions for the point sources in the Hubble Deep Field--North. Two faint blue objects,HDF2234 and HDF3072, are found to display significant proper motion, 10.0 $\pm$ 2.5 and 15.5 $\pm$ 3.8 mas yr$^{-1}$. Photometric distances and tangential velocities for these stars are consistent with disk white dwarfs located at $\sim$ 500 pc. The faint blue objects analyzed by Ibata et al. (199…
A redshift survey has been carried out in the region of the Hubble Deep Field North using the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrograph at the Keck Observatory. The resulting redshift catalog, which contains 671 entries, is a compendium of our own data together with published LRIS/Keck data. It is more than 92% complete for objects, irrespective of morphology, to $R = 24$ mag in the HDF itself and to $R = 23$ mag in the Flanking Fields within a diameter of 8 arcmin centered on the HDF, an unusually high completion for a magnitude limited survey performed with a large telescope. A median redshift $z …
We study the photometric parameters of the bulges of galaxies of different Hubble types including ellipticals, lenticulars, early and late type spirals and early type dwarf galaxies. Analyzing the distributions of various photometric parameters, and two- and three-dimensional correlations between them, we find that there is a difference in the correlations exhibited by bright (M_K < -22) and faint bulges, irrespective of their Hubble type. Importantly, the bright bulges, which include typically E/S0 galaxies and bulges of early type spirals, are tightly distributed around a common photometric …
In a companion paper we outlined a methodology for generating parameter-free, model-independent ``no-evolution'' fields of faint galaxy images, demonstrating the need for significant evolution in the HDF at faint magnitudes. Here we incorporate evolution into our procedure, by transforming the input bright galaxy images with redshift, for comparison with the HDF at faint magnitudes. Pure luminosity evolution is explored assuming that galaxy surface brightness evolves uniformly, at a rate chosen to reproduce the I-band counts. This form of evolution exacerbates the size discrepancy identified b…
We introduce a new empirical function for modeling the spectral energy distributions of galaxies. We apply it to a sample of 590 galaxies in the region of the HDF with $z < 1.5$ using multi-color photometry with wide wavelength coverage combined with spectroscopic redshifts from our 93% complete R-selected redshift survey there. We find the following: As expected, galaxies with strong signs of recent star formation (i.e. those which show emission lines) have bluer continua in both the rest frame UV and the optical/near-infrared. The redder galaxies tend to be more luminous. The SEDs of activel…
We present results from a 221.9 ks Chandra exposure of the HDF-N and its vicinity, concentrating on the 8.6' X 8.7' area covered by the Caltech Faint Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (the `Caltech area'). The minimum detectable fluxes in the 0.5-2 keV and 2-8 keV bands are 1.3e-16 cgs and 6.5e-16 cgs, respectively and a total of 82 sources are detected. More than 80% of the extragalactic X-ray background in the 2-8 keV band is resolved. Redshifts are available for 96% of the sources with R<23; the redshift range is 0.1-3.5 with most sources having z < 1.5. Eight of the X-ray sources are located in…
The discovery of HDF~J123652+621227, a candidate gravitational lens in the HDF, is reported. This lens may be multiply imaging several optical sources at different redshifts. If follow-up spectroscopy of the lens and the brightest image confirms this hypothesis, observations of this system alone can be used to obtain an estimate of the redshift distribution at extremely faint flux levels.
We present galaxy counts in the near-ultraviolet (NUV; 2365Å) and far-ultraviolet (FUV; 1595Å) obtained from Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) observations of portions of the Hubble Deep Field North (HDFN), the Hubble Deep Field South (HDFS), and a parallel field near the HDFN. All three fields have deep (AB$>$29) optical imaging, and we determine magnitudes by taking the ultraviolet flux detected within the limiting optical isophote. An analysis of the UV-optical colors of detected objects, combined with a visual inspection of the UV images, indicates that there are no detectable ob…
I am currently analyzing the emission line spectra of the approximately 600 galaxies from the sample of Cohen et al. (2000) and Cohen (2001) in the region of the HDF-North with z<1.5. A progress report on this effort of the Caltech Faint Galaxy Redshift Survey is presented.
The unprecedented resolution of the refurbished Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has led to major advances in our understanding of galaxy formation. The high image quality in the Medium Deep Survey and Hubble Deep Field has made it possible, for the first time, to classify faint distant galaxies according to morphological type. These observations have revealed a large population of galaxies classed as irregulars or which show signs of recent merger activity. Their abundance rises steeply with apparent magnitude, providing a likely explanation for th…
We use a new technique to search for faint red stars in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) imaged by the Wide Field Camera (WFC2) on the {\it Hubble Space Telescope}. We construct a densely sampled stellar light profile from a set of undersampled images of bright stars in a low-latitude field. Comparison of this stellar light profile to densely sampled profiles of individual objects in the HDF constructed from multiple undersampled dithers allows us to distinguish unambiguously between stars and galaxies to $I=26.3$. We find no stars with $V-I>1.8$ in the outer 90\% of the volume probed. This result …
I briefly report on the X-ray detection of 10 radio sub-mJy sources in the 2 Ms Chandra observation of the Hubble Deep Field North region. These sources follow the same radio/X-ray luminosities relation which holds for nearby galaxies. Making use of this relation, X-ray number counts from star forming galaxies are predicted from the deep radio Log N-Log S's.
We have previously found in the Hubble Deep Field a significant angular correlation of faint, high color-redshift objects on scales below one arcsecond, or several kiloparsecs in metric size. We examine the correlation and nearest neighbor statistics to conclude that 38% of these objects in the HDF have a companion within one arcsecond, three times the number expected in a random distribution with the same number of objects. We examine three dynamical scenarios for these object multiplets: 1) the objects are star-forming regions within normal galaxies, whose disks have been relatively dimmed b…
We present a spectroscopic analysis of 21 galaxies with z=0.2-1.5 drawn from a 25 sq. arcmin ultra-deep 15 micron ISOCAM survey centered in the HDFS. VLT/ISAAC spectra are reported for 18 sources, aimed at detecting the redshifted Ha. Optical data come from VLT/FORS2 and NTT/EMMI. Ha line emission is detected in all the observed objects. Our analysis of emission lines, morphology, and SEDs shows evidence for AGN in only two of these sources. The Ha luminosities indicate star formation rates (SFR) between 0.5 and 20 Msun, without extinction corrections. We find good correlations between the mid…
Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) images are used to identify and study star cluster candidates in the nearby spiral galaxy M101. About 3000 round, slightly-resolved cluster candidates are identified in 10 ACS pointings covering an area of 106 arcmin^2. The cluster candidates' color and size distributions are consistent with those of star clusters in other nearby spirals. The majority of the M101 candidates are blue and more likely to be associated with the galaxy's spiral arms, implying that they are young. The galaxy-luminosity-normalized number of `young massive clust…
The Hubble space telescope observations of the northern Hubble deep field, and more recently its counterpart in the south, provide detections and photometry for stars and field galaxies to the faintest levels currently achievable, reaching magnitudes V ~ 30. Since 1995, the northern Hubble deep field has been the focus of deep surveys at nearly all wavelengths. These observations have revealed many properties of high redshift galaxies, and have contributed important data on the stellar mass function in the Galactic halo.
VLBI now has the capability of imaging relatively large fields-of-view (~ 5 arcmin sq) with sub-mJy detection limits. In principle such observations can distinguish between starburst and AGN activity in cosmologically distant sources. We present the first deep, wide-field European VLBI Network (EVN) 1.6 GHz observations of faint radio sources in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) region. The EVN clearly (> 5sigma) detects 2 radio sources in a field that encompasses the HDF and part of the Hubble Flanking Fields (HFF). The sources detected are: VLA J123644+621133 (a z=1.01, low-luminosity FR-I radio s…
Fifty-seven nearby low surface brightness dwarf galaxies were searched for globular cluster candidates (GCCs) using Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 imaging in V and I. The sample consists of 18 dwarf spheroidal (dSph), 36 irregular (dIrr), and 3 "transition" type (dIrr/dSph) galaxies with angular sizes less than 3.7 kpc situated at distances 2-6 Mpc in the field and in the nearby groups: M81, Centaurus A, Sculptor, Canes Venatici I cloud. We find that ~50% of dSph, dIrr/dSph, and dIrr galaxies contain GCCs. The fraction of GCCs located near the center of dwarf spheroidal galaxies is >2 times high…
We compare the luminosity functions for red galaxies lying on the restframe (U-V) color-magnitude sequence in a homogeneous sample of ten X-ray luminous clusters from the MACS survey at z~0.5 to a similarly selected X-ray cluster sample at z~0.1. We exploit deep Hubble Space Telescope ACS imaging in the F555W and F814W passbands of the central 1.2Mpc diameter regions of the distant clusters to measure precise colors for the galaxies in these regions and statistically correct for contamination by field galaxies using observations of blank fields. We apply an identical analysis to ground-based p…
We discuss the deep galaxy counts from the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) imaging survey. At faint magnitudes, the slope of the differential number-magnitude relation is flatter than 0.2 in all four HDF bandpasses. In the ultraviolet, a fluctuation analysis shows that the flattening observed below U=26 mag is not due to incompleteness and is more pronounced than in the other bands, consistent with the idea that a redshift limit has been reached in the galaxy distribution. A reddening trend of about 0.5 magnitude is observed at faint fluxes in the colour-magnitude diagram, (U-V)_{eff} vs. V. We interp…
We report the discovery of a variable object in the Hubble Deep Field North (HDF-N) which has brightened, during the 8.5 days sampled by the data, by more than 0.9 mag in I and about 0.7 mag in V, remaining stable in B. Subsequent observations of the HDF-N show that two years later this object has dimmed back to about its original brightness in I. The colors of this object, its brightness, its time behavior in the various filters and the evolution of its morphology are consistent with being a Type Ib supernova in a faint galaxy at z~0.95.
Stellar sources are identified in the Hubble Deep Field, and accurate colours and magnitudes are presented. The predictions of a Galactic starcounts model are compared with the faint stellar counts in this field. The model reproduces the observations very well in the magnitude range 21.0 < V < 26.4, while it overpredicts the counts by a factor of four in the range 26.4 < V < 30.0. The luminosity function for halo objects must be a factor of two smaller than that predicted by an extrapolation of the solar-neighborhood luminosity function for disc stars (with 95% confidence level). This result, …
I review recent observational progress concerning the evolution of the morphological distribution of galaxies in the rich cluster environment and in the faint field population. By coupling HST imagery with ground-based spectroscopic diagnostics, evidence accumulates that galaxy morphology can be a transient phenomenon reflecting various changes in the star formation rate. Possible physical processes responsible for these changes are discussed. Future progress in understanding them will depend on securing 2-D spectroscopic data for representative systems.
The increased incidence of morphologically peculiar galaxies at faint magnitudes in the optical could be attributable either to "morphological k-corrections" (the change in appearance when viewing high-z objects at shorter rest-frame wavelengths), or an increase in the incidence of truly irregular systems with redshift. The deep, high-resolution GTO-NICMOS near-IR imaging of a portion of the northern Hubble Deep Field has been combined with the WFPC2 data and photometric redshift estimates to study the redshift evolution of morphology, comparing galaxy appearance at the same rest-wavelengths (…
New surveys with the Spitzer space telescope identify distant star-forming and active galaxies by their strong emission at far-infrared wavelengths, which provides strong constraints on these galaxies' bolometric energy. Using early results from Spitzer surveys at 24 micron, we argue that the faint sources correspond to the existence of a population of infrared-luminous galaxies at z > 1 that are not expected from predictions based on previous observations from ISO and IRAS. Combining Spitzer images with deep ground-based optical and Hubble Space Telescope imaging, we discuss the properties of…
We present deep Hubble Space Telescope ACS and NICMOS images of six bright Lyman-break galaxy candidates that were previously discovered in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find that five of the objects are consistent with unresolved point sources. Although somewhat atypical of the class, they are most likely LoBAL quasars, perhaps FeLoBALs. The sixth object, J1147, has a faint companion galaxy located ~0.8 arcsec to the southwest. The companion contributes ~8% of the flux in the observed-frame optical and infrared. It is unknown whether this companion is located at the same redshift as J1147.
Significant uncertainties exist in the measured amplitude of the angular two-point correlation function of galaxies at magnitudes $I\approx26$ and fainter. Published results from HST and ground-based galaxy catalogs seem to differ by as much as a factor of 3, and it is not clear whether the correlation amplitude as a function of magnitude increases or decreases in the faintest magnitude bins. In order to clarify the situation, we present new results from both ground-based and HST galaxy catalogs. The angular two-point correlation function as a function of limiting R and I magnitudes was comput…
HST images of a sample of 285 galaxies with measured z from the CFRS and Autofib-LDSS redshift surveys are analysed to derive the evolution of the merger fraction out to z~1. We have performed visual and machine-based merger identifications, as well as counts of bright pairs of galaxies with magnitude differences less than 1.5 mag. We find that the pair fraction increases with z, with up to ~20% of the galaxies being in physical pairs at z~0.75-1. We derive a merger fraction varying with z as (1+z)^{3.2 +/- 0.6}, after correction for line-of-sight contamination, in excellent agreement with the…
A new population of faint galaxies characterized by an extremely high rate of evolution with redshift up to z~1.5 has recently been discovered by ISO. These sources are likely to contribute significantly to the cosmic far-IR extragalactic background. We have carried out near-infrared VLT-ISAAC spectroscopy of a sample of ISOCAM galaxies from the Hubble Deep Field South. The rest-frame R-band spectral properties of the ISO population resembles that of powerful dust-enshrouded active starburst galaxies.
Morphological classifications are reported for Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of 241 galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) and its Flanking Fields (FF) with measured redshifts in the interval 0.25 < z < 1.2, drawn from a magnitude-limited redshift survey to R = 24.0. The galaxies are divided into three groups with redshifts in the intervals [0.25,0.6], [0.6,0.8], [0.8,1.2]. R606 images from the first group and I814 images from the second and third groups are compared with B-band images of nearby galaxies. All classifications were therefore made at approximately the same rest wavelength.…
In order to explain the small scale-lengths detected in the recent deep field observations performed from large ground-based telescopes and from the Hubble Space Telescope, we investigate the predictions at high redshifts for disk galaxies that formed by infall. Changes with redshift in the observed properties of field galaxies are directly related to the evolution of the disks and of the stellar populations. We see that changes in the rest frame luminosity of a galaxy induce smaller values of half-light radii than are predicted assuming no evolution. Comparisons are presented with two observe…
We present the results of a 2-epoch variability survey in the Hubble Deep Field with the goal of investigating the population of AGN to z=1. The primary data sets analyzed for galactic variability are the original HDF observations obtained in 1995 and a second V-band image obtained 5 years later in 2000. We find evidence for nuclear variability in 16 of 217 galaxies brighter than V_nuc=27.5. Correcting for incompleteness and spurious detections, variable nuclei make up ~8% of the surveyed galaxies. Seven of our variable sources are coincident with X-ray sources detected in the 2Ms Chandra surv…
