ESA Science & Technology - CANDELS: The correlation between galaxy morphology and star formation activity at z~2

Publication date: 03 July 2013

Authors: Lee, B., et al.

Journal: To appear in Astrophysical Journal
Year: 2013

We discuss the state of the assembly of the Hubble Sequence in the mix of bright galaxies at redshift 1.4 < z <= 2.5 with a large sample of 1,671 galaxies down to H_AB~26, selected from the HST/ACS and WFC3 images of the GOODS-South field obtained as part of the GOODS and CANDELS observations. We investigate the relationship between the star formation properties and morphology using various parametric diagnostics, such as the Sersic light profile, Gini (G), M₂₀, Concentration (C), Asymmetry (A) and multiplicity parameters. Our sample clearly separates into massive, red and passive galaxies versus less massive, blue and star forming ones, and this dichotomy correlates very well with the galaxies' morphological properties. Star-forming galaxies show a broad variety of morphological features, including clumpy structures and bulges mixed with faint low surface brightness features, generally characterized by disky-type light profiles. Passively evolving galaxies, on the other hand, very often have compact light distribution and morphology typical of today's spheroidal systems. We also find that artificially redshifted local galaxies have a similar distribution with z~2 galaxies in a G-M₂₀ plane. Visual inspection between the rest-frame optical and UV images show that there is a generally weak morphological k-correction for galaxies at z~2, but the comparison with non-parametric measures show that galaxies in the rest-frame UV are somewhat clumpier than rest-frame optical. Similar general trends are observed in the local universe among massive galaxies, suggesting that the backbone of the Hubble sequence was already in place at z~2.