Structures, Stellar Population Properties, AGN Fractions, and Environments of Massive Compact Galaxies at 1 < z < 2 in 3D-HST/CANDELS

Abstract

We present a study on structures and physical properties of massive (M* > 1010M☉) compact galaxies at 1.0 < z < 2.0 in five 3D-HST/CANDELS fields. Compared with the extended star-forming galaxies (eSFGs), compact star-forming galaxies (cSFGs) are found to have the lower level of star formation, and mainly distribute in the quiescent region of the UVJ diagram. The distributions of dust attenuation and Sérsic index support that the progenitors of cQGs are cSFGs, and cSFGs are at a transitional phase between eSFGs and cQGs. The prevalence of X-ray selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) (∼28%) is confirmed in the cSFGs at 1 < z < 2 which indicates that the violent gas-rich processes such as merger and disk instability could drive the structure to be more compact, and trigger both star formation and black hole growth in the central regions. Our results support the “two-step” scenario that the cSFGs at 1 < z < 2 are the intermediate population after compaction but before a quick quenching. Our analysis of parametric and nonparametric morphologies shows that cQGs (eQGs) are more concentrated and have less substructures than cSFGs (eSFGs), and quenching and compactness should be associated with each other. The cSFGs at 1.5 < z < 2 (1 < z < 1.5) prefer to be in higher (lower) density environment, similar as cQGs (eSFGs). It suggests that merger or strong interaction might be the main driving mechanism of compaction at higher redshifts, whereas the disk instability of individual galaxies might play a more important role on the formation of cSFGs at lower redshifts.