Related papers: Superdense massive galaxies in the Nearby Universe
Our current knowledge of cosmic star-formation history during the first two billion years (corresponding to redshift z >3) is mainly based on galaxies identified in rest-frame ultraviolet light. However, this population of galaxies is known…
We calculate the observable properties of the most massive high-redshift galaxies in the hierarchical formation scenario where stellar spheroid and supermassive black hole growth are fueled by gas-rich mergers. Combining high-resolution…
We study the evolution and fate of solar composition supermassive stars in the mass range 60 - 1000 Msun. Our study is relevant both for very massive objects observed in young stellar complexes as well as supermassive stars that may…
Mergers between red galaxies are observed to be common in the nearby Universe, and are thought to be the dominant mechanism by which massive galaxies grow their mass at late times. These ``dry'' mergers can be readily identified in very…
If the Universe is dominated by cold dark matter and dark energy as in the currently popular LCDM cosmology, it is expected that large scale structures form gradually, with galaxy clusters of mass M > ~10^14 Msun appearing at around 6 Gyrs…
We present a detailed analysis of the structure and resolved stellar populations of simulated merger remnants, and compare them to observations of compact quiescent galaxies at z ~ 2. We find that major merging is a viable mechanism to…
The link between massive red galaxies in the local Universe and star-forming galaxies at high redshift is investigated with a semi-analytic model that has proven successful in many ways, e.g. explaining the galaxy colour-magnitude…
We perform a comprehensive estimate of the frequency of galaxy mergers and their impact on star formation over z~0.24--0.80 (lookback time T_b~3--7 Gyr) using 3698 (M*>=1e9 Msun) galaxies with GEMS HST, COMBO-17, and Spitzer data. Our…
In order to investigate the structure and dynamics of the recently discovered massive (M_* > 10^11 M_sun) compact z~2 galaxies, cosmological hydrodynamical/N-body simulations of a proto-cluster region have been undertaken. At z=2, the…
The current hierarchical merging paradigm and $\Lambda$CDM predict that the $z \sim 4-8$ universe should be a time in which the most massive galaxies are transitioning from their initial halo assembly to the later baryonic evolution seen in…
We examine galaxy formation in a cosmological AMR simulation, which includes two high resolution boxes, one centered on a 3 \times 10^14 M\odot cluster, and one centered on a void. We examine the evolution of 611 massive (M\ast >…
We present basic predictions of an updated version of the Munich semi-analytic hierarchical galaxy formation model that grows bulges via mergers and disk instabilities. Overall, we find that while spheroids below Ms ~ 10^11 Msun grow their…
The stellar mass assembly of massive galaxies in the first few billion years of cosmic history remains a central challenge in galaxy formation. Galaxies with $M_\star \gtrsim 10^{10}M_\odot$ observed at $z \gtrsim 4$ must grow rapidly under…
Massive early-type galaxies have undergone dramatic structural evolution over the last 10 Gyr. A companion paper shows that nearby elliptical galaxies with M*>1.3x10^{11} M_sun generically contain three photometric subcomponents: a compact…
Massive clusters of galaxies have been found as early as 3.9 Billion years (z=1.62) after the Big Bang containing stars that formed at even earlier epochs. Cosmological simulations using the current cold dark matter paradigm predict these…
Many observed massive star-forming z\approx2 galaxies are large disks that exhibit irregular morphologies, with \sim1kpc, \sim10^(8-10)Msun clumps. We present the largest sample to date of high-resolution cosmological SPH simulations that…
We present a detailed analysis of the stellar mass content of galaxies up to z=2.5 in the K20 galaxy sample, that has a 92% spectroscopic completeness and a complete $UBVRIzJK_s$ multicolor coverage. We find that the M/L ratio decreases…
We investigate the origin of the evolution of the population-averaged size of quenched galaxies (QGs) through a spectroscopic analysis of their stellar ages. The two most favoured scenarios for this evolution are either the size growth of…
Accretion of minor satellites has been postulated as the most likely mechanism to explain the significant size evolution of the massive galaxies over cosmic time. Using a sample of 629 massive (Mstar~10^11 Msun) galaxies from the…
We present a simple, empirically motivated model that simultaneously predicts the evolution of the mean size and the comoving mass density of massive early-type galaxies from z=2 to the present. First we demonstrate that some size evolution…