Tracing the Evolution of Massive Galaxies up to z ~ 3

Abstract

Objects with unusual red near-IR color J-K > 3 are extremely rare at magnitude brighter than K=20, while their surface density increases at fainter magnitudes. The nature of these sources has not yet been firmly established even if all the analysis performed so far conclude that they are galaxies at z > 2-3 ([1], [2], [3]). A detailed analysis based on a multi-band data set (from 0.3 μm to 2.15 μm) of three J-K > 3 sources selected at Ks < 22 on the HDF-S ([4]) has shown that: i) the three galaxies are at redshift 2.5 < z < 3; ii) they have a stellar mass content of M _star ~ 10¹¹M_⊙; iii) they would populate the bright end (L_z=0 ~ L^*) of the local luminosity function of galaxies even assuming they evolve passively; iv) they cannot follow an evolution significantly different from passive aging.

Keywords

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