Passive and star-forming galaxies at $1.4 \leq z \leq2.5$ in the Aegis field

TL;DR

This study identifies and analyzes star-forming and passive galaxies at redshift 1.4 to 2.5 using multi-band photometry, revealing their number counts, morphologies, star formation activity, and AGN fraction, challenging existing galaxy formation models.

Contribution

It introduces a simple two-color selection method for high-redshift galaxies and provides detailed analysis of their properties, morphology, and AGN activity, highlighting discrepancies with current models.

Findings

Number counts exceed semi-analytic model predictions.

Star formation activity increases with redshift across all masses.

Morphological diversity indicates different formation processes.

Abstract

Using a simple two-color selection based on $g$-, $z$-, and $K$-band photometry, we pick out 1609 star-forming galaxies (sgzKs) and 422 passively evolving galaxies (pgzKs) at z\sim2$ from a $K$-band-selected sample ($K_{\rm AB} < 22.0$) in an area of $\sim 0.44$ deg$^{2}$ of the All-wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey. The number counts of pgzKs\ in our sample turn over at $K_{\rm AB} \sim 21.0$, and both the number of faint and bright objects (including sgzKs\ and pgzKs) exceed the predictions of a recent semi-analytic model of galaxy formation, a more successful model is need to explain this diversity. We also find that the star formation rate (SFR) and specific SFR (sSFR) of sgzKs\ increases with redshift at all masses, implying that star-forming galaxies were much more active on average in the past. Moreover, the sSFR of massive galaxies is lower at all redshifts, suggesting that star formation contributes more to the mass growth of low-mass galaxies than to high-mass galaxies. From {\it Hubble Space Telescope} Wide Field Camera 3 near-infrared imaging data, we find that morphologies of $z\sim2$ galaxies not only have diffuse structures with lower $G$ and higher $M_{20}$ values, but also have single-object morphologies (higher $G$ and lower $M_{20}$), implying that there are morphological variety and different formation process for these galaxies at $z\sim2$. Finally, we also study the fraction of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the gzKs, 82 of 828 gzKs\ with four IRAC bands can be classified as AGNs ($\sim$ 10%). Most of these AGN candidates have $L_{\rm 0.5-10\ keV}>10^{41}\,\rm erg\,s^{-1}$.