A comparison of the morphological properties between local and z~1 infrared luminous galaxies. Are local and high-z (U)LIRGs different?

TL;DR

This study compares the morphological properties of local and z~1 infrared luminous galaxies to assess if their merger fractions differ significantly, finding minimal evolution in merger activity up to z~1.

Contribution

It provides a systematic comparison of galaxy morphologies between local and high-z (U)LIRGs using consistent classification methods and accounts for observational biases through simulated datasets.

Findings

Merger fraction decreases slightly from local to z<1.

No strong evolution in merger fraction up to z~1.

High-z (U)LIRGs have uncertain morphology classifications due to faintness.

Abstract

Ultraluminous and luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs and LIRGs) are the most extreme star-forming galaxies in the universe, and dominate the total star formation rate density at z>1. In the local universe (z<0.3), the majority of ULIRGs and a significant portion of LIRGs are triggered by interactions between gas-rich spiral galaxies, yet it is unclear if this is still the case at high-z. To investigate the relative importance of galaxy interactions in infrared luminous galaxies, we carry out a comparison of optical morphological properties between local (U)LIRGs and (U)LIRGs at z=0.5-1.5 based on the same sample selection, morphology classification scheme, and optical morphology at similar rest-frame wavelengths. In addition, we quantify the systematics in comparing local and high-z datasets by constructing a redshifted dataset from local (U)LIRGs, in which its data quality mimics the high-z dataset. Based on the Gini-M20 classification scheme, we find that the fraction of interacting systems decreases by ~8% from local to z<~1, and it is consistent with the reduction between local and redshifted datasets (6(+14-6)%). Based on visual classifications, the merger fraction of local ULIRGs is found to be ~20% lower compared to published results, and the reduction due to redshifiting is 15(+10-8)%. Consequently, the differences of merger fractions between local and z<~1 (U)LIRGs is only ~17%. These results demonstrate that there is no strong evolution in the fraction of (U)LIRGs classified as mergers at least out to z~1. At z>1, the morphology types of ~30% of (U)LIRGs can not be determined due to their faintness in the F814W-band, and thus the merger fraction measured at z>1 suffers from large uncertainties.