Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2002-06-24
Astrophys.J. 589 (2003) 147-156
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
16 pages, 10 figures. ApJ in press
Scientific paper
10.1086/374636
We investigate the color-magnitude distribution in the rich cluster AC 118 at z=0.31. The sample is selected by the photometric redshift technique, allowing to study a wide range of properties of stellar populations, and is complete in the K-band, allowing to study these properties up to a given galaxy mass. We use galaxy templates based on population synthesis models to translate the physical properties of the stellar populations - formation epoch, time-scale of star formation, and metallicity - into observed magnitudes and colors. In this way we show that a sharp luminosity-metallicity relation is inferred without any assumption on the galaxy formation scenario (either monolithic or hierarchical). Our data exclude significant differences in star formation histories along the color-magnitude relation, and therefore confirm a pure metallicity interpretation for its origin, with an early (z~5) formation epoch for the bulk of stellar populations. The dispersion in the color-magnitude diagram implies that fainter galaxies in our sample (K~18) ceased to form stars as late as z~0.5, in agreement with the picture that these galaxies were recently accreted into the cluster environment. The trend with redshift of the total stellar mass shows that half of the luminous mass in AC 118 was already formed at $z~2, but also that 20% of the stars formed at z<1.
Busarello Gianni
Capaccioli Massimo
La Barbera Francesco
Massarotti M.
Merluzzi Paola
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