Morphologies of local Lyman break galaxy analogs II: A Comparison with galaxies at z=2-4 in ACS and WFC3 images of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field

TL;DR

This study compares the morphologies of local Lyman Break Analogs with high-redshift galaxies, revealing similarities and the potential underestimation of merger signatures due to observational limitations, thus informing galaxy evolution models.

Contribution

It demonstrates that many high-z galaxy merger signatures may be missed in current observations, highlighting the importance of local analogs for understanding galaxy evolution.

Findings

Local LBAs share morphological features with high-z LBGs.

Degradation of images reduces detectable merger signatures.

Many high-z mergers may be overlooked due to observational limits.

Abstract

Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) display a range in structures (from single/compact to clumpy/extended) that is different from typical local star-forming galaxies. Recently, we have introduced a sample of rare, nearby (z<0.3) starbursts that appear to be good analogs of LBGs. These "Lyman Break Analogs" (LBAs) provide an excellent training set for understanding starbursts at different redshifts. We present an application of this by comparing the rest-frame UV/optical morphologies of 30 LBAs with those of sBzK galaxies at z~2, and LBGs at z~3-4 in the HUDF. The UV/optical colors and sizes of LBAs and LBGs are very similar, while the BzK galaxies are somewhat redder and larger. There is significant overlap between the morphologies (G, C, A and M_20) of the local and high-z samples, although the latter are somewhat less concentrated and clumpier. We find that in the majority of LBAs the starbursts appear to be triggered by interactions/mergers. When the images of the LBAs are degraded to the same sensitivity and resolution as the images of LBGs and BzK galaxies, these relatively faint asymmetric features are no longer detectable. This effect is particularly severe in the rest-frame UV. It has been suggested that high-z galaxies experience intense bursts unlike anything seen locally, possibly due to cold flows and instabilities. In part, this is based on the fact that the majority (~70%) of LBGs do not show morphological signatures of mergers. Our results suggest that this evidence is insufficient, since a large fraction of such signatures would likely have been missed in current observations of z>2 galaxies. This leaves open the possibility that clumpy accretion and mergers remain important in driving the evolution of these starbursts, together with rapid gas accretion through other means.