Related papers: The average structural evolution of massive galaxi…
Cumulative number density matching of galaxies is a method to observationally connect descendent galaxies to their typical main progenitors at higher redshifts and thereby to assess the evolution of galaxy properties. The accuracy of this…
The cumulative comoving number-density of galaxies as a function of stellar mass or central velocity dispersion is commonly used to link galaxy populations across different epochs. By assuming that galaxies preserve their number-density in…
A central challenge in observational studies of galaxy formation is how to associate progenitor galaxies with their descendants at lower redshifts. One promising approach is to link galaxies at fixed number density, rather than fixed…
We investigate the evolution of galaxy masses and star formation rates in the Evolution and Assembly of Galaxies and their Environment (EAGLE) simulations. These comprise a suite of hydrodynamical simulations in a $\Lambda$CDM cosmogony…
Using the cosmological smoothed particle hydrodynamical code GADGET-3 we make a realistic assessment of the technique of using constant cumulative number density as a tracer of galaxy evolution at high redshift. We find that over a redshift…
Comparing galaxies across redshifts at fixed cumulative number density is a popular way to estimate the evolution of specific galaxy populations. This method ignores scatter in mass accretion histories and galaxy-galaxy mergers, which can…
Studying the average properties of galaxies at a fixed comoving number density over a wide redshift range has become a popular observational method, because it may trace the evolution of galaxies statistically. We test this method by…
We analyse the mass assembly of central galaxies in the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulations. We build merger trees to connect galaxies to their progenitors at different redshifts and characterize their assembly histories by focusing on 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…
Understanding the evolution of galaxies provides crucial insights into a broad range of aspects in astrophysics, including structure formation and growth, the nature of dark energy and dark matter, baryonic physics, and more. It is,…
Galaxy comoving number density is commonly used to forge progenitor/descendant links between observed galaxy populations at different epochs. However, this method breaks down in the presence of galaxy mergers, or when galaxies experience…
In this paper, we use stacking analysis to trace the mass-growth, colour evolution, and structural evolution of present-day massive galaxies ($\log(M_{*}/M_{\odot})=11.5$) out to $z=5$. We utilize the exceptional depth and area of the…
We determine the evolution of the co-moving density of the most massive ($M_* \geq 10^{12} M_\odot$) early-type galaxy population in the redshift range of $z = 0.15$ - 0.45 in different stellar mass ranges using data from the Sloan Digital…
We present a study on the stellar mass growth of the progenitors of local massive galaxies with a variety of number density selections with $n\le1\times10^{-4}\,\rm{Mpc^{-3}}$ (corresponding to $M_*=10^{11.24}\rm{M_{\odot}}$ at z=0.3) in…
The cumulative number density matching approach equates number densities between adjacent redshifts to derive empirical galaxy evolution tracks from the observed galaxy stellar mass function. However, it is well known that this approach…
Explaining the formation and evolution of galaxies is one of the most challenging problems in observational cosmology. Many observations suggest that galaxies we see today could have evolved from the merging of smaller subsystems. Evolution…
We propose a general framework leveraging the halo-galaxy connection to link galaxies observed at different redshift in a statistical way, and use the link to infer the redshift evolution of the galaxy population. Our tests based on…
We present the evolution of galaxy sizes, from redshift 2 to 0, for actively star forming and passive galaxies in the cosmological hydrodynamical 1003 cMpc3 simulation of the EAGLE project. We find that the sizes increase with stellar mass…
Aims: We present a new method that uses luminosity or stellar mass functions combined with clustering measurements to select samples of galaxies at different redshifts likely to follow a progenitor-to-descendant relationship. As the method…
Using observed stellar mass functions out to $z=5$, we measure the main progenitor stellar mass growth of descendant galaxies with masses of $\log{M_{*}/M_{\odot}}=11.5,11.0,10.5,10.0$ at $z\sim0.1$ using an evolving cumulative number…