The Merger Fraction Evolution up to z ~ 1

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
Number of authors
7
IAC number of authors
2
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.