The spin of late-type galaxies at redshifts z < 1.2

TL;DR

This study investigates the evolution of galactic spin in late-type galaxies up to redshift 1.2, finding that the overall spin distribution remains consistent over time despite individual galaxy evolution.

Contribution

It provides evidence that the spin distribution of late-type galaxies does not significantly evolve from redshift 1.2 to the present, highlighting the stability of galactic angular momentum over cosmic time.

Findings

Spin distribution is consistent with local galaxies.

No significant evolution of the dimensionless angular momentum parameter $$ from z=0.4 to 1.2.

Spin depends on mass but not on environment.

Abstract

We study the evolution of the galactic spin using data of high redshift galaxies in the fields of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS). Through simple dynamical considerations we estimate the spin for the disc galaxies in our sample and find that its distribution is consistent with that found for nearby galaxies. Defining a dimensionless angular momentum parameter for the disc component of the galaxies ($\lambda_{d}$), we do not find signs of evolution in the redshift range $0.4 \leq z \leq 1.2$. We find that the mass and environmental dependence of the spin of our high redshift galaxies are similar to that of low-$z$ galaxies; showing a strong dependence on mass, in the sense that low-mass systems present higher $\lambda_{d}$ values than high-mass galaxies, with no significant dependence on the environmental density. These results lead us to conclude that, although individual disc galaxies might occasionally suffer from strong evolution, they evolve in such a way that the overall spin distribution of the galactic population remains constant from $z\sim1$ to the present epoch.