Low Surface Brightness Galaxies in z > 1 Galaxy Clusters: HST approaches the Progenitors of Local Ultra Diffuse Galaxies

TL;DR

This study uses deep HST imaging to identify and analyze low surface brightness galaxies at z > 1, providing insights into their evolution and potential as progenitors of local ultra diffuse galaxies.

Contribution

It presents the first statistical detection of large LSB galaxies in high-redshift clusters and estimates their abundance and evolution compared to local UDGs.

Findings

Detected over-densities of large LSB galaxies in z > 1 clusters.

Distant UDGs are under-abundant by a factor of ~3 compared to local UDGs.

Evidence suggests significant size growth of UDGs over the last 8 Gyr.

Abstract

Ultra Diffuse Galaxies (UDGs), a type of large Low Surface Brightness (LSB) galaxies with particularly large effective radii (r_eff > 1.5 kpc), are now routinely studied in the local (z<0.1) universe. While they are found to be abundant in clusters, groups, and in the field, their formation mechanisms remain elusive and an active topic of debate. New insights may be found by studying their counterparts at higher redshifts (z>1.0), even though cosmological surface brightness dimming makes them particularly diffcult to detect and study there. This work uses the deepest Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging stacks of z > 1 clusters, namely: SPT-CL J2106-5844 and MOO J1014+0038. These two clusters, at z=1.13 and z=1.23, were monitored as part of the HST See-Change program. Compared to the Hubble Extreme Deep Field (XDF) as reference field, we find statistical over-densities of large LSB galaxies in both clusters. Based on stellar population modelling and assuming no size evolution, we find that the faintest sources we can detect are about as bright as expected for the progenitors of the brightest local UDGs. We find that the LSBs we detect in SPT-CL J2106-5844 and MOO J1014-5844 already have old stellar populations that place them on the red sequence. Correcting for incompleteness, and based on an extrapolation of local scaling relations, we estimate that distant UDGs are relatively under-abundant compared to local UDGs by a factor ~ 3. A plausible explanation for the implied increase with time would be a significant size growth of these galaxies in the last ~ 8 Gyr, as also suggested by hydrodynamical simulations.