A high stellar velocity dispersion for a compact massive galaxy at redshift z = 2.186

Pieter G. van Dokkum (), Mariska Kriek and Marijn Franx
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Pieter G. van Dokkum: Yale University, 260 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA
Mariska Kriek: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
Marijn Franx: Leiden Observatory, Leiden University

Nature, 2009, vol. 460, issue 7256, 717-719

Abstract: Small galaxies are great A realization that the oldest and most luminous galaxies in the Universe may be more compact than was thought — cramming a stellar mass similar to that of a present-day elliptical galaxy into much tighter package — is prompting a re-evaluation of some of the assumptions relating to the evolution of galaxies. For instance, it would mean that massive galaxies must have grown in size by a factor of about five during the past ten billion years. If these early galaxies are as small as recent photometric studies suggest, their component stars should be moving with much higher velocities than the stars in present-day galaxies of the same mass, a phenomenon analogous to the rapid rotation of figure skaters drawing their arms inwards. That's something that can be tested, and new observations of a massive compact galaxy at high redshift (z = 2.186) lend support to the high mass/small size combination for the galaxy inferred from photometry, and to the conclusion that massive galaxies of 10 billion years ago were very different from what we see today.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1038/nature08220

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