GMASS Ultradeep Spectroscopy of Galaxies at 1.4<z<2. II. Superdense passive galaxies: how did they form and evolve ?

TL;DR

This study combines deep spectroscopy, photometry, and imaging to analyze superdense passive galaxies at 1.4<z<2, revealing their compact sizes, old stellar populations, and potential origins from high-redshift starbursts, informing galaxy formation theories.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed spectroscopic and morphological analysis of superdense passive galaxies at z~1.4-2, linking them to earlier starburst events and challenging simple passive evolution models.

Findings

Galaxies have old stellar ages (~1 Gyr) and high stellar mass surface densities.

Their sizes are much smaller than local spheroids, with R_e <~ 1 kpc.

Superdense relics are rare at z~0, suggesting significant size evolution.

Abstract

We combine ultradeep optical spectroscopy from the GMASS project ("Galaxy Mass Assembly ultradeep Spectroscopic Survey") with GOODS multi-band photometry and HST imaging to study a sample of passive galaxiesat 1.39<z<1.99 selected at 4.5 microns. A stacked spectrum with an equivalent integration time of ~500 hours was obtained is publicly released. The spectral and photometric SED properties indicate very weak or absent star formation, moderately old stellar ages of ~1 Gyr (for solar metallicity) and stellar masses in the range of 10^{10-11} solar masses, thus implying that the major star formation and assembly processes for these galaxies occurred at z>2. These galaxies have morphologies that are predominantly compact and spheroidal.However, their sizes (R_e <~ 1 kpc) are much smaller than those of spheroids in the present--day Universe. Their stellar mass surface densities are consequently higher by ~1 dex if compared to spheroids at z~0 with the same mass. Their rest-frame B-band surface brightness scales with the effective radius, but the offset with respect to the surface brightness of the local Kormendy relation is too large to be explained by simple passive evolution. At z~1, a larger fraction of passive galaxies follows the z~0 size -- mass relation. Superdense relics with R_e~1 kpc are extremely rare at z~0 with respect to z>1, and absent if R_e<1 kpc. Because of the similar sizes and mass densities, we suggest that the superdense passive galaxies at 1<z<2 are the remnants of the powerful starbursts occurring in submillimeter--selected galaxies at z>2. The results are compared with theoretical models and the main implications discussed in the framework of massive galaxy formation and evolution.