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We describe the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS (CSI) Survey, a wide-field, near-IR selected spectrophotometric redshift survey with the Inamori Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph (IMACS) on Magellan-Baade. By defining a flux-limited sample of galaxies in Spitzer \emph{IRAC} $3.6\mu$m imaging of SWIRE fields, the CSI Survey efficiently traces the stellar mass of average galaxies to $z\sim 1.5$. This first paper provides an overview of the survey selection, observations, processing of the photometry and spectrophotometry. We also describe the processing of the data: new methods of fitting synthetic templates of spectral energy distributions are used to derive redshifts, stellar masses, emission line luminosities, and coarse information on recent star-formation. Our unique methodology for analyzing low-dispersion spectra taken with multilayer prisms in \emph{IMACS}, combined with panchromatic photometry from the ultraviolet to the IR, has yielded high quality redshifts for 43,347 galaxies in our first 5.3 degs$^2$ of the SWIRE XMM-LSS field. We use three different approaches to estimate our redshift errors and find robust agreement. Over the full range of $3.6\mu$m fluxes of our selection, we find typical redshift uncertainties of $\sigma_z/(1+z) \la 0.015$. In comparisons with previously published spectroscopic redshifts we find scatters of $\sigma_z/(1+z) = 0.011$ for galaxies at $0.7\le z\le 0.9$, and $\sigma_z/(1+z) = 0.014$ for galaxies at $0.9\le z\le 1.2$. For galaxies brighter and fainter than $i=23$ mag, we find $\sigma_z/(1+z) = 0.008$ and $\sigma_z/(1+z) = 0.022$, respectively. Notably, our low-dispersion spectroscopy and analysis yields comparable redshift uncertainties and success rates for both red and blue galaxies, largely eliminating color-based systematics that can seriously bias observed dependencies of galaxy evolution on environment.
We present the first measurement of the evolution of the galaxy group stellar mass function (GrSMF) to redshift z>1 and low masses (M>10^12 Msun). Our results are based on early data from the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS (CSI) Survey, utilizing low-resolution spectra and broadband optical/near-IR photometry to measure redshifts for a 3.6um selected sample of 37,000 galaxies over a 5.3 deg^2 area to z~1.2. Employing a standard friends-of-friends algorithm for all galaxies more massive than log(M_star/Msun)=10.5, we find a total of ~4000 groups. Correcting for spectroscopic incompleteness (including slit collisions), we build cumulative stellar mass functions for these groups in redshift bins at z>0.35, comparing to the z=0 and z>0 mass functions from various group and cluster samples. Our derived mass functions match up well with z>0.35 X-ray selected clusters, and strong evolution is evident at all masses over the past 8 Gyr. Given the already low level of star formation activity in galaxies at these masses, we therefore attribute most of the observed growth in the GrSMF to group-group and group-galaxy mergers, in accordance with qualitative notions of hierarchical structure formation. Given the factor 3-10 increase in the number density of groups and clusters with M_\star>10^12 Msun since z=1 and the strong anticorrelation between star formation activity and environmental density, this late-time growth in group-sized halos may therefore be an important contributor to the structural and star-formation evolution of massive galaxies over the past 8 Gyr.
Since z~1, the stellar mass density locked in low mass groups and clusters has grown by a factor of ~8. Here we make the first statistical measurements of the stellar mass content of low mass X-ray groups at 0.5<z<1, enabling the calibration of stellar-to-halo mass scales for wide-field optical and infrared surveys. Groups are selected from combined Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray observations in the Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS). These ultra-deep observations allow us to identify bona fide low mass groups at high redshift and enable measurements of their total halo masses. We compute aggregate stellar masses for these halos using galaxies from the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS (CSI) spectroscopic redshift survey. Stars comprise ~3-4% of the total mass of group halos with masses 10^{12.8}<M200/Msun<10^{13.5} (about the mass of Fornax and 1/50th the mass of Virgo). Complementing our sample with higher mass halos at these redshifts, we find that the stellar-to-halo mass ratio decreases toward higher halo masses, consistent with other work in the local and high redshift universe. The observed scatter about the stellar-halo mass relation is ~0.25 dex, which is relatively small and suggests that total group stellar mass can serve as a rough proxy for halo mass. We find no evidence for any significant evolution in the stellar-halo mass relation since z<1. Quantifying the stellar content in groups since this epoch is critical given that hierarchical assembly leads to such halos growing in number density and hosting increasing shares of quiescent galaxies.
We present coarse but robust star-formation histories (SFHs) derived from spectrophotometric data of the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS Survey, for 22,494 galaxies at 0.3\lt z\lt 0.9 with stellar masses of 109 M ⊙ to 1012 M ⊙. Our study moves beyond “average” SFHs and distribution functions of specific star-formation rates (sSFRs) to individually measured SFHs for tens of thousands of galaxies. By comparing star-formation rates (SFRs) with timescales of {10}10,{10}9, and 108 years, we find a wide diversity of SFHs: “old galaxies” that formed most or all of their stars early, galaxies that formed stars with declining or constant SFRs over a Hubble time, and genuinely “young galaxies” that formed most of their stars since z = 1. This sequence is one of decreasing stellar mass, but remarkably, each type is found over a mass range of a factor of 10. Conversely, galaxies at any given mass follow a wide range of SFHs, leading us to conclude that (1) halo mass does not uniquely determine SFHs, (2) there is no “typical” evolutionary track, and (3) “abundance matching” has limitations as a tool for inferring physics. Our observations imply that SFHs are set at an early epoch, and that—for most galaxies—the decline and cessation of star formation occurs over a Hubble time, without distinct “quenching” events. SFH diversity is inconsistent with models where galaxy mass, at any given epoch, grows simply along relations between SFR and stellar mass, but is consistent with a two-parameter lognormal form, lending credence to this model from a new and independent perspective.
Late bloomers (LBs) are massive ({M}* > {10}10 {\text{}}{M}⊙ ) galaxies at z < 1 that formed the majority of their stars within ∼2 Gyr of the epoch of observation. Our improved methodology for deriving star formation histories (SFHs) of galaxies at redshifts 0.45 < z < 0.75 from the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS Survey includes confidence intervals that robustly distinguish LBs from “old” galaxies. We use simulated SFHs to test for “false positives” and contamination from old galaxies to demonstrate that the late-bloomer population is not an artifact of our template modeling technique. We show that LBs account for ∼20% of z ∼ 0.6 galaxies with masses of the modern Milky Way, with a moderate dependence on mass. We take advantage of a 1% overlap of our sample with HST (CANDELS) imaging to construct a “gold standard” catalog of 74 galaxies with high-confidence SFHs, SEDs, basic data, and HST images to facilitate comparison with future studies by others. This small subset suggests that galaxies with both old and young SFHs cover the full range of morphology and environment (excluding rich groups or clusters), albeit with a mild but suggestive correlation with the local environment. We begin the investigation of whether LBs of sufficient mass and frequency are produced in current-generation ΛCDM-based semianalytic models of galaxy formation. In terms of halo growth, we find a late-assembling halo fraction within a factor of two of our late bloomer fraction. However, sufficiently delaying star formation in such halos may be a challenge for the baryon component of such models.
A key obstacle to developing a satisfying theory of galaxy evolution is the difficulty in extending analytic descriptions of early structure formation into full nonlinearity, the regime in which galaxy growth occurs. Extant techniques, though powerful, are based on approximate numerical methods whose Monte Carlo-like nature hinders intuition building. Here, we develop a new solution to this problem and its empirical validation. We first derive closed-form analytic expectations for the evolution of fixed percentiles in the real-space cosmic density distribution, {\it averaged over representative volumes observers can track cross-sectionally\/}. Using the Lagrangian forms of the fluid equations, we show that percentiles in δ---the density relative to the median---should grow as δ(t)∝δα0tβ, where α≡2 and β≡2 for Newtonian gravity at epochs after the overdensities transitioned to nonlinear growth. We then use 9.5 sq.~deg.~of Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS Redshift Survey data to map {\it galaxy\/} environmental densities over 0.2<z<1.5 (∼7~Gyr) and infer α=1.98±0.04 and β=2.01±0.11---consistent with our analytic prediction. These findings---enabled by swapping the Eulerian domain of most work on density growth for a Lagrangian approach to real-space volumetric averages---provide some of the strongest evidence that a lognormal distribution of early density fluctuations indeed decoupled from cosmic expansion to grow through gravitational accretion. They also comprise the first exact, analytic description of the nonlinear growth of structure extensible to (arbitrarily) low redshift. We hope these results open the door to new modeling of, and insight-building into, the diversity of galaxy growth in cosmological contexts.