Talk abstract details

The evolutionary paths among galaxy types on the Red Sequence at 0.3< z <1.5
M. Prieto, M. C. Eliche-Moral, M. Balcells, G. Barro, D. Cristóbal-Hornillos, L. Domínguez-Palmero, P. Erwin, J. Gallego, R. Guzmán, A. Hempel, C. López-Sanjuan, P.G. Pérez-González, J. Zamorano

Abstract

We have studied the main evolutionary paths among the galaxy types residing on the massive end of the Red Sequence during the last 9 Gyr. The morphological and star formation properties of a sample of red galaxies at 0.3 < z < 1.5 with stellar masses M_*> 6x 10e11 Msun from the GOYA photometric catalogue have been analysed. We provide direct observational evidence for the first time of the existence of three main evolutionary paths among the different red galaxy types since z~1.5, revealing the nature of the processes that have governed the assembly of present-day massive quiescent galaxies. The results are in excellent agreement with the hierarchical evolutionary framework proposed in the Eliche-Moral et al. (2010) model. We comment on how the better data coming from SHARDs (one of the ESO/GTC Large Programmes approved in 2009A) will complement the present findings, shedding some light into many of the still unsettled questions concerning the migration of galaxies from the Blue Cloud to the Red Sequence at z<1.5.