# The Coevolution of Massive Quiescent Galaxies and Their Dark Matter Halos over the Last 6 Billion Years

## TL;DR

This study uses observational data and empirical modeling to explore how massive quiescent galaxies and their dark matter halos have coevolved over the last 6 billion years, highlighting the role of minor mergers.

## Contribution

It presents a self-consistent model linking galaxy properties and dark matter halos, providing empirical constraints on their joint evolution over cosmic time.

## Key findings

- Massive quiescent galaxies grow mainly through minor mergers.
- Dark matter halo growth rates align with N-body simulations.
- Galaxies evolve along the stellar mass-halo mass relation.

## Abstract

We investigate the growth of massive quiescent galaxies at $z<0.6$ based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Smithsonian Hectospec Lensing Survey---two magnitude limited spectroscopic surveys of high data quality and completeness. Our three parameter model links quiescent galaxies across cosmic time by self-consistently evolving stellar mass, stellar population age sensitive $D_n4000$ index, half-light radius and stellar velocity dispersion. Stellar velocity dispersion is a robust proxy of dark matter halo mass; we use it to connect galaxies and dark matter halos and thus empirically constrain their coevolution. The typical rate of stellar mass growth is $\sim \! 10 \,\, M_\odot \,\, \mathrm{yr}^{-1}$ and dark matter growth rates from our empirical model are remarkably consistent with N-body simulations. Massive quiescent galaxies grow by minor mergers with dark matter halos of mass $10^{10} \,\, M_\odot \lesssim M_{DM} \lesssim 10^{12} \,\, M_\odot$ and evolve parallel to the stellar mass-halo mass relation based on N-body simulations. Thus, the stellar mass-halo mass relation of massive galaxies apparently results primarily from dry minor merging.