In this work I investigate the redshift evolution of pair fraction of a sample of 196 massive galaxies from z = 0 to 3, selected from the COSMOS field. We find that on average a massive galaxy undergoes ~ 1.1 \pm 0.5 major merger since z = 3. I will review the current limitations of using the pair fraction as a probe for quantifying the impact of mergers on galaxy evolution. This work is based on the paper Man et al. (2011).
@article{arxiv.1112.3764,
title = {Galaxy pairs as a probe for mergers at z ~ 2},
author = {Allison W. S. Man and Andrew Zirm and Sune Toft},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1112.3764},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
4 pages; to appear on the Conference Proceedings for "Galaxy Mergers in an Evolving Universe", held in Hualien, Taiwan (October 2011)