Bibcode
López-Sanjuan, C.; Balcells, M.; Pérez-González, P. G.; Barro, G.; García-Dabó, C. E.; Gallego, J.; Zamorano, J.
Bibliographical reference
Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics V, Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings. ISBN 978-3-642-11249-2. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2010, p. 307
Advertised on:
2010
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
We present results on the disk-disk major merger fraction evolution up
to z˜1 in SPITZER/IRAC selected samples in the GOODS-S field. We
pick as merger remnants sources with high asymmetry (A). We take into
account the experimental errors in photometric redshift and index A,
that tend to overestimate the merger fraction, by maximum likelihood
techniques, and avoid the loss of information with redshift (degradation
of spatial resolution and cosmological dimming) by artificially
redshifting all sources to a representative redshift, z d=1.
We define absolute B-band and mass selected samples, for which we obtain
a very different merger fraction evolution: f m
mph(z,M B ≤-20)=0.013(1+z)1.8,
while f m mph(z,M
⋆>1010M&sun;)=0.001(1+z)5.4.
These results implies that only˜20% (8%) of today’s M
B ≤-20 (M
⋆>1010M&sun;) galaxies have
undergone a disk-disk major merger since z=1. Combined with high
redshift data in the literature, we expect 1.2-0.3
+0.4 disk-disk major mergers since z˜3 for M
⋆>1010M&sun; galaxies, with
almost all the merger activity before z = 1.