The Evolution of Disk Galaxies in the GOODS-South Field: Number Densities and Size Distribution*

S. Ravindranath; H. C. Ferguson; C. Conselice; M. Giavalisco; M. Dickinson; E. Chatzichristou; D. de Mello; S. M. Fall; J. P. Gardner; N. A. Grogin; A. Hornschemeier; S. Jogee; A. Koekemoer; C. Kretchmer; M. Livio; B. Mobasher; R. Somerville

doi:10.1086/382952

The Evolution of Disk Galaxies in the GOODS-South Field: Number Densities and Size Distribution^*

S. Ravindranath¹, H. C. Ferguson^1,2, C. Conselice³, M. Giavalisco¹, M. Dickinson^1,2, E. Chatzichristou⁴, D. de Mello⁵, S. M. Fall¹, J. P. Gardner⁵, N. A. Grogin², A. Hornschemeier², S. Jogee¹, A. Koekemoer¹, C. Kretchmer², M. Livio¹, B. Mobasher¹, and R. Somerville¹

Published 2004 February 25 • © 2004. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 604, Number 1 Citation S. Ravindranath et al 2004 ApJ 604 L9 DOI 10.1086/382952

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Author affiliations

¹ Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218

² Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218

³ California Institute of Technology, Mail Code 105-24, Pasadena, CA 91125

⁴ Department of Astronomy, Yale University, P.O. Box 208101, New Haven, CT 06520

⁵ Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar physics, Code 681, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771

Dates

Received 2003 July 27
Accepted 2004 January 16
Published 2004 February 25

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Abstract

We examine the evolution of the sizes and number densities of disk galaxies using the high-resolution images obtained by the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. The multiwavelength images are used to classify galaxies based on their rest-frame B-band morphologies out to redshift z ~ 1.25. In order to minimize the effect of selection biases, we confine our analysis to galaxies that occupy the region of the magnitude-size plane where the survey is ~90% complete at all redshifts. The observed size distribution is consistent with a lognormal distribution as seen for the disk galaxies in the local universe and does not show any significant evolution over the redshift range 0.25 ≤ z ≤ 1.25. We find that the number densities of disk galaxies remains fairly constant over this redshift range, although a modest evolution by a factor of 4 may be possible within the 2 σ uncertainties.

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Footnotes

*
Based on observations obtained with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555.

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