The KMOS Redshift One Spectroscopic Survey (KROSS): The Tully-Fisher Relation at z ~ 1

TL;DR

This study uses the KROSS survey to analyze the Tully-Fisher relations at z ~ 1, revealing that stellar mass has evolved over 8 billion years while K-band luminosity has not, thanks to detailed velocity field modeling.

Contribution

It provides new measurements of the Tully-Fisher relations at z ~ 1 using integral field spectroscopy, distinguishing rotational support to refine evolutionary conclusions.

Findings

Stellar mass TFR zero-point decreases by 0.41 dex over 8 billion years.

No evolution observed in the K-band TFR zero-point.

Rotationally supported galaxies had less stellar mass at z ~ 1 than today.

Abstract

We present the stellar mass ($M_{*}$), and K-corrected $K$-band absolute magnitude ($M_{K}$) Tully-Fisher relations (TFRs) for sub-samples of the 584 galaxies spatially resolved in H$\alpha$ emission by the KMOS Redshift One Spectroscopic Survey (KROSS). We model the velocity field of each of the KROSS galaxies and extract a rotation velocity, $V_{80}$ at a radius equal to the major axis of an ellipse containing 80% of the total integrated H$\alpha$ flux. The large sample size of KROSS allowed us to select 210 galaxies with well measured rotation speeds. We extract from this sample a further 56 galaxies that are rotationally supported, using the stringent criterion $V_{80}/\sigma > 3$, where $\sigma$ is the flux weighted average velocity dispersion. We find the $M_{K}$ and $M_{*}$ TFRs for this sub-sample to be $M_{K} / \rm{mag}= (-7.3 \pm 0.9) \times [(\log(V_{80}/\rm{km\ s^{-1}})-2.25]- 23.4 \pm 0.2$ , and $\log(M_{*} / M_{\odot})= (4.7 \pm 0.4) \times [(\log(V_{80}/\rm{km\ s^{-1}}) - 2.25] + 10.0 \pm 0.3$, respectively. We find an evolution of the $M_{*}$ TFR zero-point of $-0.41 \pm 0.08$ dex over the last $\sim $8 billion years. However, we measure no evolution in the $M_{K}$ TFR zero-point over the same period. We conclude that rotationally supported galaxies of a given dynamical mass had less stellar mass at $z \sim 1$ than the present day, yet emitted the same amounts of $K$-band light. The ability of KROSS to differentiate, using integral field spectroscopy with KMOS, between those galaxies that are rotationally supported and those that are not explains why our findings are at odds with previous studies without the same capabilities.