The Mass Assembly History of Field Galaxies: Detection of an Evolving Mass Limit for Star‐Forming Galaxies

We characterize the mass-dependent evolution of galaxies in a large sample of more than 8,000 galaxies using spectroscopic redshifts drawn from the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey in the range 0.4 < z < 1.4 and stellar masses calculated from K-band photometry obtained at Palomar Observatory. Using restframe (U-B) color and [OII] line widths, we distinguish star-forming from passive populations in order to explore the nature of "downsizing"--a pattern in which the sites of active star formation shift from high mass galaxies at early times to lower mass systems at later epochs. Over the redshift range probed, we identify a mass limit, M_Q, above which star formation appears to be quenched. The physical…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Award: NAS 5-26555
• NA
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  Awards: NAS 5-26555, 5-26555
• ST
  Space Telescope Science Institute

  Awards: NAS 5-26555, 5-26555, 26555