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K. Bundy (Caltech), M. Fukugita (ICRR, Univ. of Tokyo), R. Ellis, C. Conselice (Caltech), T. Kodama (NAOJ), J. Brinchmann (MPA, Munchen)
We report on progress made analyzing deep CISCO K' imaging of well-studied HST redshift survey fields to determine the mass accretion and merger rates of field galaxies out to z~1. Using an approach similar to that employed by Le Fevre et al. 2000, we find a field-corrected infrared pair fraction of 15% ± 8% in the z~ 0.5 to 1 redshift range. This is lower than the result of an equivalent analysis performed on WFPC2-814 images of the same fields, which delivers a pair fraction of 24% ± 10% over the identical redshift range. Although currently marginal, this result supports the contention that optical pair fractions are inflated by associated star formation and that IR data will be more reliable in tracing the mass assembly history. Future observations will extend this sample beyond the 89 galaxies studied so far, allowing us to test this hypothesis more rigorously. We also report on a comparison between pair fraction and morphological type as wells as estimates of the stellar mass of companion galaxies, used to determine the time-dependent mass accretion rate.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: kep149ler@yahoo.com
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34, #4
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.