The OTELO survey as a morphological probe. Last ten Gyr of galaxy evolution

The mass–size relation up to z = 2^⋆

¹ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
e-mail: jnadolny@iac.es, quba.nadolny@gmail.com
² Universidad de La Laguna, Dept. Astrofísica, 38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
³ Instituto de Radioastronomía Milimétrica (IRAM), Av. Divina Pastora 7, Núcleo Central, 18012 Granada, Spain
⁴ Asociación Astrofísica para la Promoción de la Investigación, Instrumentación y su Desarrollo, ASPID, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
⁵ Depto. Astrofísica, Centro de Astrobiología (INTA-CSIC), ESAC Campus, Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n, 28692 Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
⁶ Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute (ESSTI), Entoto Observatory and Research Center (EORC), Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Division, PO Box 33679, Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia
⁷ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, 18080 Granada, Spain
⁸ ISDEFE for European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC)/ESA, PO Box 78, 28690 Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain
⁹ Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apdo. Postal 70-264, 04510 Ciudad de México, Mexico
¹⁰ Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
¹¹ Departamento de Física, Escuela Superior de Física y Matemáticas, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, México DF, Mexico
¹² Departamento de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Facultad CC Físicas, Instituto de Física de Partículas y del Cosmos, IPARCOS, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
¹³ Instituto de Física de Cantabria (CSIC-Universidad de Cantabria), 39005 Santander, Spain
¹⁴ Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, UK
¹⁵ Fundación Galileo Galilei – INAF, Rambla José Ana Fernéndez Pérez, 7, 38712 Breña Baja, TF, Spain
¹⁶ Telescopio Nazionale Galileo Roque de Los Muchachos Astronomical Observatory, 38787 Garafia, TF, Spain

Received: 2 March 2020
Accepted: 8 January 2021

Abstract

Context. The morphology of galaxies provide us with a unique tool for relating and understanding other physical properties and their changes over the course of cosmic time. It is only recently that we have been afforded access to a wealth of data for an unprecedented number galaxies thanks to large and deep surveys.

Aims. We present the morphological catalogue of the OTELO survey galaxies detected with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)-ACS F814W images. We explore various methods applied in previous works to separate early-type (ET) and late-type (LT) galaxies classified via spectral energy distribution (SED) fittings using galaxy templates. Together with this article, we are releasing a catalogue containing the main morphological parameters in the F606W and F814W bands derived for more than 8000 sources.

Methods. The morphological analysis is based on the single-Sérsic profile fit. We used the GALAPAGOS2 software to provide multi-wavelength morphological parameters fitted simultaneously in two HST-ACS bands. The GALAPAGOS2 software detects, prepares guess values for GALFIT-M, and provides the best-fitting single-Sérsic model in both bands for each source. Stellar masses were estimated using synthetic rest-frame magnitudes recovered from SED fittings of galaxy templates. The morphological catalogue is complemented with concentration indexes from a separate SExtractor dual, high dynamical range mode.

Results. A total of 8812 sources were successfully fitted with single-Sérsic profiles. The analysis of a carefully selected sample of ∼3000 sources up to z_phot = 2 is presented in this work, of which 873 sources were not detected in previous studies. We found no statistical evidence for the evolution of the low-mass end of mass–size relation for ET and LT since z = 2. Furthermore, we found a good agreement for the median size evolution for ET and LT galaxies, for a given stellar mass, with the data from the literature. Compared to previous works on faint field galaxies, we found similarities regarding their rest-frame colours as well as the Sérsic and concentration indices.