The Fraction of Quiescent Massive Galaxies in the Early Universe

Details The Fraction of Quiescent Massive Galaxies in the Early Universe The Fraction of Quiescent Massive Galaxies in the Early Universe

2009-01-19

arxiv.org/abs/0901.2898v2

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Galaxy Astrophysics

The replaced version matches the published one (typos corrected)

Scientific paper

Aims: The aim of this work is to collect a complete, mass--selected sample of galaxies with very low specific star formation rate, for a comparison with the prediction of recent theoretical models. Method: We use the 24/K flux ratio, complemented by the SED fitting to the full 0.35-8.0 mum spectral distribution, to select quiescent galaxies from z~0.4 to z~4 in the GOODS--MUSIC sample. Our observational selection can be translated into thresholds on the specific star formation rate SFR/M_*, that can be used to compare with the theoretical predictions. Results: We find that, in the framework of the well known global decline of the quiescent fraction with redshift, a non-negligible fraction ~15-20% of massive galaxies with very low specific star formation rate exists up to z~4, including a tail of "Red&Dead" galaxies with SFR/M_*<10^{-11}/yr. Recent theoretical models vary to a large extent in the prediction of the fraction of galaxies with very low specific star formation rates, and are unable to provide a global match to our data.

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