Evolution of the Frequency of Luminous (\geq L_V*) Close Galaxy Pairs at z < 1.2 in the COSMOS Field

A. Koekemoer; B. Mobasher; D. B. Sanders; D. Calzetti; J. S. Kartaltepe; M. Salvato; N. Z. Scoville; P. Capak; S. S. Sasaki; T. Murayama

Evolution of the Frequency of Luminous (geq L_V*) Close Galaxy Pairs at z < 1.2 in the COSMOS Field

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arxiv 0705.2266 v1 pith:CM3HLP6U submitted 2007-05-16 astro-ph

Evolution of the Frequency of Luminous (geq L_V*) Close Galaxy Pairs at z < 1.2 in the COSMOS Field

J. S. Kartaltepe , D. B. Sanders , N. Z. Scoville , D. Calzetti , P. Capak , A. Koekemoer , B. Mobasher , T. Murayama

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M. Salvato S. S. Sasaki Y. Taniguchi

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classification astro-ph

keywords galaxyfractionluminouspairpairscosmosevolutiongalaxies

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We measure the fraction of luminous galaxies in pairs at projected separations of 5-20 kpc out to z=1.2 in the COSMOS field using ACS images and photometric redshifts derived from an extensive multiwavelength dataset. Analysis of a complete sample of 106,188 galaxies more luminous than M_V=-19.8 (~ L_V*) in the redshift range 0.1 < z < 1.2 yields 1,749 galaxy pairs. These data are supplemented by a local z=0-0.1 value for the galaxy pair fraction derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). After statistically correcting the COSMOS pair sample for chance line-of-sight superpositions, the evolution in the pair fraction is fit by a power law \propto (1+z)^{n=3.1 \pm 0.1}. If this strongly evolving pair fraction continues out to higher redshift, ~ 50% of all luminous galaxies at z ~ 2 are in close pairs. This clearly signifies that galaxy mergers are a very significant and possibly dominant mechanism for galaxy evolution during the epoch of galaxy formation at z=1 to 3.

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Deep Extragalactic VIsible Legacy Survey (DEVILS): Morphologically-selected galaxy merger fractions and their direct comparison to close-pair samples
astro-ph.GA 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 4.0

Morphological merger fractions exceed close-pair fractions across 0.2<z<0.9 in DEVILS, with minimal sample overlap, attributed to different merger stages and timescales.