Lee Spitler (Macquarie University)

Lee Spitler Colloquium: The ZFOURGE survey: the evolution of galaxies since redshift z=4

Marsfield Lecture Theatre

Abstract

I will review results from the ZFOURGE survey, a new imaging campaign to track galaxy evolution over the last 12 billion years. Deep Magellan near-infrared imaging taken with medium-bandpass filters allows us to finely sample galaxy spectral energy distributions and derive unprecedented photometric redshifts and stellar population parameters at z > 1.5. Using ultra-deep Ks-band imaging (25.5-26 AB mag. 5-sigma) in 3 deep fields (COSMOS, UDS, GOODS-S) to select galaxies, we have constructed large stellar mass-limited galaxy samples to redshift z=4. With these catalogs we have: (1) conducted an evolutionary study of the star-forming and quiescent galaxy stellar mass functions to a redshift of z=3, (2) demonstrated the existence of quiescent galaxies out to z=4, (3) performed a general census of the massive galaxy population at z=3-4 (4) tracked the evolution of radio and X-ray active galactic nuclei host galaxies and (5) discovered one of the most distant galaxy clusters known so far.