Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Jul 1994
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994apj...429l..13b&link_type=abstract
The Astrophysical Journal, vol. 429, no. 1, pt. 2, p. L13-L17
Mathematics
Logic
83
Galactic Evolution, Interacting Galaxies, Red Shift, Hubble Space Telescope, Quasars
Scientific paper
We use four deep serendipitous fields observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide-Field Camera to constrain the rate of galaxy merging between the current epoch and z approximately equals 0.7. Since most mergers occur between members of bound pairs, the merger rate is given to a good approximation by (half) the rate of disappearance of galaxies in pairs. An objective criterion for pair membership shows that 34% +/- 9% of our HST galaxies with I = 18-22 belong to pairs, compared to 7% locally. This means that about 13% of the galaxy population has disappeared due to merging in the cosmic epoch corresponding to this magnitude interval (or 0.1 approximately less than z approximately less than 0.7). Our pair fraction is a lower limit: correction for pair members falling below our detection threshold might raise the fraction to approximately 50%. Since we address only two-galaxy merging, these values do not include physical systems of higher multiplicity. Incorporating I-band field-galaxy redshift distributions, the pair fraction grows with redshift as alpha(1 + z)3.5 +/- 0.5 and the merger rate as (1 + z)2.5 +/- 0.5. This may have significant implications for the interpretation of galaxy counts (disappearance of faint blue galaxies), the cosmological evolution of faint radio sources and quasars (which evolve approximately as (1 + z)3, the similarity in the power law is necessary but not sufficient evidence for a causal relation), statistics of QSO companions, the galaxy content in distant clusters, and the merging history of a 'typical' galaxy.
Burkey Jordan M.
Franklin Barbara E.
Keel William C.
Windhorst Rogier A.
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