Vol 18, No 11

Color gradients of the galaxies at 0.5 < z < 1 I. Dependence on galaxy global properties

Zhi-Xiong Liang, Cheng Li

Abstract

Abstract We investigate the color gradients of galaxies at 0.5 < z < 1.0, using a sample of ∼35 000 galaxies with both spectroscopy from the final data release of the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS), and photometry in ultraviolet/optical/near-infrared bands from the VIPERS-Multi-Lambda Survey (VIPERS-MLS) and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS). We estimate rest-frame colors, stellar mass, star formation rate from fitting the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) for each galaxy, as well as a two-zone color D(u − r), defined as the difference in rest-frame (u − r) color between the outer and inner region of the galaxy.We find that the two-zone color shows weak or no correlations with all galaxy properties considered except stellar mass. On average, D(u − r) decreases with increasing stellar mass, indicating relatively red colors in galactic centers of more massive galaxies. We then compare the properties of “red-cored” and “blue-cored” galaxies, defined to have either a negative or a positive D(u − r) respectively. Although the two types of galaxies show similar distributions in most properties, we find massive red-cored galaxies with M∗ < 1010.5M⊙ to have larger sizes at given stellar mass (thus lower surface mass densities), and less massive red-cored galaxies with M∗ < 1010.5M⊙ to have lower central galaxy fraction. These findings can be understood if one assumes that the star formation process happens from inside out, in the same way as recently emphasized in studies of low-z galaxies. The similarity between the galaxies at intermediate redshifts and those at low redshifts supports the idea that galaxy evolution since z ∼ 1 has been mainly driven by secular processes internal to galaxies rather than galaxy mergers or external environment.

Keywords

Keywords galaxies: photometry — galaxies: statistics — galaxies: evolution

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