We have carried out a joint photometric and structural analysis of red sequence galaxies in four clusters at a mean redshift of z ~ 1.25 using optical and near-IR HST imaging reaching to at least 3 magnitudes fainter than $M^*$. As expected, the photometry and overall galaxy sizes imply purely passive evolution of stellar populations in red sequence cluster galaxies. However, the morphologies of red sequence cluster galaxies at these redshifts show significant differences to those of local counterparts. Apart from the most massive galaxies, the high redshift red sequence galaxies are significantly diskier than their low redshift analogues. These galaxies also show significant colour gradients, again not present in their low redshift equivalents, most straightforwardly explained by radial age gradients. A clear implication of these findings is that red sequence cluster galaxies originally arrive on the sequence as disk-dominated galaxies whose disks subsequently fade or evolve secularly to end up as high Sérsic index early-type galaxies (classical S0s or possibly ellipticals) at lower redshift. The apparent lack of growth seen in a comparison of high and low redshift red sequence galaxies implies that any evolution is internal and is unlikely to involve significant mergers. While significant star formation may have ended at high redshift, the cluster red sequence population continues to evolve (morphologically) for several Gyrs thereafter.
The interplay between cosmic gas accretion on to galaxies and galaxy mergers drives the observed morphological diversity of galaxies. By comparing the state-of-the-art hydrodynamical cosmological simulations Horizon-AGN and Horizon-noAGN, we unambiguously identify the critical role of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in setting up the correct galaxy morphology for the massive end of the population. With AGN feedback, typical kinematic and morpho-metric properties of galaxy populations as well as the galaxy-halo mass relation are in much better agreement with observations. Only AGN feedback allows …
Using high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope imaging data, we perform a visual morphological classification of $\sim 36,000$ galaxies at $z < 1$ in the DEVILS/COSMOS region. As the main goal of this study, we derive the stellar mass function (SMF) and stellar mass density (SMD) sub-divided by morphological types. We find that visual morphological classification using optical imaging is increasingly difficult at $z > 1$ as the fraction of irregular galaxies and merger systems (when observed at rest-frame UV/blue wavelengths) dramatically increases. We determine that roughly two-thirds of the to…
We present a study of a sample of 254 clusters from the SDSS-DR7 Yang Catalog and an auxiliary sample of field galaxies to perform a detailed investigation on how galaxy quenching depends on both environment and galaxy stellar mass. Our samples are restricted to 0.03$\leq$z$\leq$0.1 and we only consider clusters with $\rm log(M_{halo}/M_{\odot}) \geq 14$. Comparing properties of field and cluster galaxies in the Blue Cloud, Green Valley and Red Sequence, we find evidence that field galaxies in the red sequence hosted star formation events $\rm 2.1 \pm 0.7$ Gyr ago, on average, more recently th…
The study of galaxy morphology is fundamental to understand the physical processes driving the structural evolution of galaxies. It has long been known that dense environments host high fractions of early-type galaxies and low fractions of late-type galaxies, indicating that the environment affects the structural evolution of galaxies. In this paper we present an analysis of the morphological composition of red sequence galaxies in a sample of 9 galaxy clusters at $0.8<z<1.5$ drawn from the HAWK-I cluster survey (HCS), with the aim of investigating the evolutionary paths of galaxies with diffe…
The Hubble sequence provides a useful classification of galaxy morphology at low redshift. However, morphologies are not static, but rather evolve as the growth of structure proceeds through mergers, accretion and secular processes. We investigate how kinematically defined disc and spheroidal structures form and evolve in the EAGLE hydrodynamic simulation of galaxy formation. At high redshift most galaxies of all masses are asymmetric. By redshift $z\simeq 1.5$ the Hubble sequence is established and after this time most of the stellar mass is in spheroids whose contribution to the stellar mass…
We applied the image-based approach with a convolutional neural network model to the sample of low-redshifts galaxies with $-24^{m}<M_{r}<-19.4^{m}$ from the SDSS DR9. We divided it into two subsamples, SDSS DR9 galaxy dataset and Galaxy Zoo 2 (GZ2) dataset, considering them as the inference and training datasets, respectively. As a result, we created the morphological catalog of 315782 galaxies at 0.02<z<0.1, where morphological five classes and 34 detailed features (bar, rings, number of spiral arms, mergers, etc.) were first defined for 216148 galaxies (inference dataset) by the image-based…
Galaxies arrive on the red sequences of clusters at high redshift ($z>1$) once their star formation is quenched and evolve passively thereafter. However, we have previously found that cluster red sequence galaxies (CRSGs) undergo significant morphological evolution subsequent to the cessation of star formation, at some point in the past 9-10~Gyr. Through a detailed study of a large sample of cluster red sequence galaxies spanning $0.2<z<1.4$ we elucidate the details of this evolution. Below $z \sim 0.5-0.6$ (in the last 5-6 Gyr) there is little or no morphological evolution in the population a…
Galaxy shapes in Magneticum. I. Connecting stellar and dark matter shapes to dynamical and morphological galaxy properties and the large-scale structure
The well-known cluster of galaxies ZwCl0024+1652 at z $\sim$ 0.4, lacks an in-depth morphological classification of its central region. While previous studies provide a visual classification of a patched area, we used the public code called galaxy Support Vector Machine (galSVM) and HST/ACS data as well as WFP2 master catalogue to automatically classify all cluster members up to 1 Mpc. galSVM analyses galaxy morphologies through Support Vector Machine (SVM). From the 231 cluster galaxies, we classified 97 as early-types (ET) and 83 as late-types (LT). The remaining 51 stayed unclassified (or u…
The morphology of galaxies reflects their assembly history and ongoing dynamical perturbations from the environment. Analyzing i-band images from the Pan-STARRS1 Survey, we study the optical morphological asymmetry of the host galaxies of a large, well-defined sample of nearby active galactic nuclei (AGNs) to investigate the role of mergers and interactions in triggering nuclear activity. The AGNs, comprising 245 type 1 and 4514 type 2 objects, are compared with 4537 star-forming galaxies matched in redshift and stellar mass. We develop a comprehensive masking strategy to isolate the emission …
Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) near-infrared high-resolution imaging from the 3D-HST survey, we analyze the morphology and structure of 502 ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs; $L_{\rm IR}>10^{12}L_{\odot}$) at $1<z<3$. Their rest-frame optical morphologies show that high-redshift ULIRGs are a mixture of mergers or interacting systems, irregular galaxies, disks, and ellipticals. Most of ULIRGs in our sample can be roughly divided into merging systems and late-type galaxies (Sb$-$Ir), with relatively high $M_{20}$ ($>-1.7$) and small Sérsic index ($n<2.5$)…
The Galaxy Zoo has provided morphological data on many galaxies. Several biases have been identified in the Galaxy Zoo data. Here we report on a newly discovered selection effect: astronomers interested in studying spiral galaxies may select a set of spiral galaxies based upon a threshold in spirality (the fraction of Galaxy Zoo humans who report seeing spiral structure). SpArcFiRe is an automated tool that decomposes a spiral galaxy into its constituent spiral arms, providing objective, quantitative data on their structure. SpArcFiRe measures the pitch angle of spiral arms. We have observed t…
We use galaxy groups at redshifts between 0.4 and 1.0 selected from the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) to study the color-morphological properties of satellite galaxies, and investigate possible alignment between the distribution of the satellites and the orientation of their central galaxy. We confirm the bimodal color and morphological type distribution for satellite galaxies at this redshift range: the red and blue classes corresponds to the early and late morphological types respectively, and the early-type satellites are on average brighter than the late-type ones. Furthe…
We investigate the time evolution of non-parametric morphological quantities and their relationship to major mergers between $4\geq z \geq 2$ in high-resolution cosmological zoom simulations of disk galaxies that implement kinetic wind feedback, $H_2$-based star formation, and minimal ISM pressurisation. We show that the resulting galaxies broadly match basic observed physical properties of $z\sim 2$ objects. We measure the galaxies' concentrations ($C$), asymmetries ($A$), and $Gini$ ($G$) and $M_{20}$ coefficients, and correlate these with major merger events identified from the mass growth …
Understanding how rotationally-supported discs transform into dispersion-dominated spheroids is central to our comprehension of galaxy evolution. Morphological transformation is largely merger-driven. While major mergers can efficiently create spheroids, recent work has highlighted the significant role of other processes, like minor mergers, in driving morphological change. Given their rich merger histories, spheroids typically exhibit large fractions of `ex-situ' stellar mass, i.e. mass that is accreted, via mergers, from external objects. This is particularly true for the most massive galaxi…
We tested how the AGN contribution (5% - 75% of the total flux) may affect different morphological parameters commonly used in galaxy classification. We carried out all analysis at $z$,$sim$,0 and at higher redshifts that correspond to the COSMOS field. Using a local training sample of $>$,2000 visually classified galaxies, we carried out all measurements with and without the central source and quantified how the contribution of a bright nuclear point source could affect different morphological parameters, such as: Abraham and Concelice-Bershady indices, Gini, Asymmetry, $M20$ moment of light,…
We explore constraints on the joint photometric and morphological evolution of typical low redshift galaxies as they move from the blue cloud through the green valley and onto the red sequence. We select GAMA survey galaxies with $10.25<{\rm log}(M_*/M_\odot)<10.75$ and $z<0.2$ classified according to their intrinsic $u^*-r^*$ colour. From single component Sérsic fits, we find that the stellar mass-sensitive $K-$band profiles of red and green galaxy populations are very similar, while $g-$band profiles indicate more disk-like morphologies for the green galaxies: apparent (optical) morphologica…
The quenching "maintenance'" and related "cooling flow" problems are important in galaxies from Milky Way mass through clusters. We investigate this in halos with masses $\sim 10^{12}-10^{14}\,{\rm M}_{\odot}$, using non-cosmological high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations with the FIRE-2 (Feedback In Realistic Environments) stellar feedback model. We specifically focus on physics present without AGN, and show that various proposed "non-AGN" solution mechanisms in the literature, including Type Ia supernovae, shocked AGB winds, other forms of stellar feedback (e.g. cosmic rays), magnetic fiel…
We present the results of a detailed analysis of galaxy properties along the red sequence in XMMU J1229+0151, an X-ray selected cluster at $z=0.98$ drawn from the HAWK-I Cluster Survey (HCS). Taking advantage of the broad photometric coverage and the availability of 77 spectra in the cluster field, we fit synthetic spectral energy distributions, and estimate stellar masses and photometric redshifts, which we use to determine the cluster membership. We investigate morphological and structural properties of red sequence galaxies and find that elliptical galaxies populate the bright end, while S0…
We investigate morphological properties of 61 Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs) at z = 4.86 identified in the COSMOS field, based on Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) imaging data in the F814W-band. Out of the 61 LAEs, we find the ACS counterparts for the 54 LAEs. Eight LAEs show double-component structures with a mean projected separation of 0."63 (~ 4.0 kpc at z = 4.86). Considering the faintness of these ACS sources, we carefully evaluate their morphological properties, that is, size and ellipticity. While some of them are compact and indistinguishable from the PSF half-lig…
The morphological study is crucial to investigate the connections between active galactic nuclei (AGN) activities and the evolution of galaxies. Substantial studies have found that radiative-mode AGNs primarily reside in disk galaxies, questioning the merger-driven mechanism of AGN activities. In this study, through S{é}rsic profile fitting and non-parametric morphological parameter measurements, we investigated the morphology of host galaxies of 485 optical variability-selected low luminosity AGNs at $z\lesssim4.26$ in the COSMOS field. We analyzed high-resolution images of the Hubble Space T…
We consider an all-sky sample of 1029 Local Volume (LV) galaxies situated within a distance of 11 Mpc. Their majority have precise distances, estimates of hydrogen mass fraction and star-formation rate derived from far-ultraviolet or Halpha fluxes. To describe an environment, we attribute two dimensionless values: the density contrast created by the most significant neighbour and the local density contrast produced by all neighbours within a separation of 1 Mpc. The hydrogen mass fraction exhibits a weak effect of HI deficiency being the most pronounced for dwarf irregular galaxies. The specif…
Deep Extragalactic VIsible Legacy Survey (DEVILS): Morphologically-selected galaxy merger fractions and their direct comparison to close-pair samples
The University of Western Australia（西澳大利亚大学）；Monash University（莫纳什大学）；Instituto Astrofisica de Canarias（加那利天体物理研究所）；Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC)（空间科学研究所）
Modern observational and analytic techniques now enable the direct measurement of star formation histories and the inference of galaxy assembly histories. However, current theoretical predictions of assembly are not ideally suited for direct comparison with such observational data. We therefore extend the work of prior examinations of the contribution of ex-situ stars to the stellar mass budget of simulated galaxies. Our predictions are specifically tailored for direct testing with a new generation of observational techniques by calculating ex-situ fractions as functions of galaxy mass and mor…
To explore the evolutionary connection among red, green, and blue galaxy populations, based on a sample of massive ($M_* > 10^{10} M_{\odot} $) galaxies at 0.5<z<2.5 in five 3D-HST/CANDELS fields, we investigate the dust content, morphologies, structures, AGN fractions, and environments of these three galaxy populations. Green valley galaxies are found to have intermediate dust attenuation, and reside in the middle of the regions occupied by quiescent and star-forming galaxies in the UVJ diagram. Compared with blue and red galaxy populations at z<2, green galaxies have intermediate compactness…
The galaxy population is strongly bimodal in both colour and morphology, and the two measures correlate strongly, with most blue galaxies being late-types (spirals) and most early-types, typically ellipticals, being red. This observation has led to the use of colour as a convenient selection criteria to make samples which are then labelled by morphology. Such use of colour as a proxy for morphology results in necessarily impure and incomplete samples. In this paper, we make use of the morphological labels produced by Galaxy Zoo to measure how incomplete and impure such samples are, considering…
We consistently analyse for the first time the impact of survey depth and spatial resolution on the most used morphological parameters for classifying galaxies through non-parametric methods: Abraham and Conselice-Bershady concentration indices, Gini, M20 moment of light, asymmetry, and smoothness. Three different non-local datasets are used, ALHAMBRA and SXDS (examples of deep ground-based surveys), and COSMOS (deep space-based survey). We used a sample of 3000 local, visually classified galaxies, measuring their morphological parameters at their real redshifts (z ~ 0). Then we simulated them…
To figure out the effect of stellar mass and local environment on morphological transformation and star formation quenching in galaxies, we use the massive ($M_* \geq 10^{10} M_{\odot}$) galaxies at $0.5 \leq z \leq 2.5$ in five fields of 3D-HST/CANDELS. Based on the {\it UVJ} diagnosis and the possibility of possessing spheroid, our sample of massive galaxies are classified into four populations: quiescent early-type galaxies (qEs), quiescent late-type galaxies (qLs), star-forming early-type galaxies (sEs), and star-forming late-type galaxies (sLs). It is found that the quiescent fraction is …
We present a new morphological indicator designed for automated recognition of galaxies with faint asymmetric tidal features suggestive of an ongoing or past merger. We use this new indicator, together with preexisting diagnostics of galaxy structure to study the role of galaxy mergers in inducing (post-)starburst spectral signatures in local galaxies, and investigate whether (post-)starburst galaxies play a role in the build up of the `red sequence'. Our morphological and structural analysis of an evolutionary sample of 335 (post-)starburst galaxies in the SDSS DR7 with starburst ages 0<tSB<0…
We present the data release paper for the Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (GZH) project. This is the third phase in a large effort to measure reliable, detailed morphologies of galaxies by using crowdsourced visual classifications of colour composite images. Images in GZH were selected from various publicly-released Hubble Space Telescope Legacy programs conducted with the Advanced Camera for Surveys, with filters that probe the rest-frame optical emission from galaxies out to $z \sim 1$. The bulk of the sample is selected to have $m_{I814W} < 23.5$,but goes as faint as $m_{I814W} < 26.8$ for deep images c…
Context. Computational techniques are essential for mining large databases produced in modern surveys with value-added products. Aims. This paper presents a machine learning procedure to carry out simultaneously galaxy morphological classification and photometric redshift estimates. Currently, only spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting has been used to obtain these results all at once. Methods. We used the ancillary data gathered in the OTELO catalog and designed a non-sequential neural network that accepts optical and near-infrared photometry as input. The network transfers the results o…
