The angular momentum of disc galaxies at z = 1

A. Marasco*, F. Fraternali, L. Posti, M. Ijtsma, E. M. Di Teodoro, T. Oosterloo

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    22 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We investigate the relation between stellar mass (M) and specific stellar angular momentum (j), or "Fall relation", for a sample of 17 isolated, regularly rotating disc galaxies at zb ∼b1. All galaxies have rotation curves determined from Hα emission-line data; HST imaging in optical and infrared filters; and robust determinations of their stellar masses. We use HST images in f814w and f160w filters, roughly corresponding to rest-frames B and I bands, to extract surface-brightness profiles for our systems. We robustly bracket j by assuming that rotation curves beyond the outermost Hα rotation point stay either flat or follow a Keplerian fall-off. By comparing our measurements with those determined for disc galaxies in the local universe, we find no evolution in the Fall relation in the redshift range 0b< bzb< b1, regardless of the band used and despite the uncertainties in the stellar rotation curves at large radii. This result holds unless stellar masses at zb=b1 are systematically underestimated by b3 50%. Our findings are compatible with expectations based on a ΛCDM cosmological framework and support a scenario where both the stellar Tully-Fisher and mass-size relations for spirals do not evolve significantly in this redshift range.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article numberL6
    JournalAstronomy and Astrophysics
    Volume621
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2019

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