The cosmic assembly of stellar haloes in massive Early-Type Galaxies

TL;DR

This study uses deep Hubble imaging to analyze how massive early-type galaxies grow their outer regions through minor and major mergers from redshift 1 to the present, revealing increasing stellar mass in their halos over time.

Contribution

It provides observational evidence of the growth of stellar halos in massive early-type galaxies over cosmic time, supporting merger-driven assembly models.

Findings

Outer stellar mass fraction increases from 3.5% at z~2 to 28.7% at z~0.1.

Mass growth driven primarily by minor and major mergers since z=1.

Outer halo mass fractions align with numerical simulations.

Abstract

Using the exquisite depth of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF12 programme) dataset, we explore the ongoing assembly of the outermost regions of the most massive galaxies ($\rm M_{\rm stellar}\geq$ 5$\times$10$^{10}$ M$_{\odot}$) at $z \leq$ 1. The outskirts of massive objects, particularly Early-Types Galaxies (ETGs), are expected to suffer a dramatic transformation across cosmic time due to continuous accretion of small galaxies. HUDF imaging allows us to study this process at intermediate redshifts in 6 massive galaxies, exploring the individual surface brightness profiles out to $\sim$25 effective radii. We find that 5-20\% of the total stellar mass for the galaxies in our sample is contained within 10 $< R <$ 50 kpc. These values are in close agreement with numerical simulations, and higher than those reported for local late-type galaxies ($\lesssim$5\%). The fraction of stellar mass stored in the outer envelopes/haloes of Massive Early-Type Galaxies increases with decreasing redshift, being 28.7\% at $< z > =$ 0.1, 15.1\% at $< z > =$ 0.65 and 3.5\% at $< z > =$ 2. The fraction of mass in diffuse features linked with ongoing minor merger events is $>$ 1-2\%, very similar to predictions based on observed close pair counts. Therefore, the results for our small albeit meaningful sample suggest that the size and mass growth of the most massive galaxies have been solely driven by minor and major merging from $z =$ 1 to today.