Swinbank, Mark and Harrison, Chris and Trayford, James and Schaller, Matthieu and Smail, Ian and Schaye, Joop and Theuns, Tom and Smit, Renske and Alexander, David and Bacon, Roland and Bower, Richard and Contini, Thierry and Crain, Rob and Breuck, Carlos de and Decarli, Roberto and Epinat, Benoit and Fumagalli, Michele and Furlong, Michelle and Galametz, Audrey and Johnson, Helen and Lagos, Claudia and Richard, Johan and Vernet, Joel and Sharples, Ray and Sobral, David and Stott, John (2017) Angular momentum evolution of galaxies over the past 10 Gyr : a MUSE and KMOS dynamical survey of 400 star-forming galaxies from z=0.3 to 1.7. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 467 (3). pp. 3140-3159. ISSN 0035-8711
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Abstract
We present a MUSE and KMOS dynamical study 405 star-forming galaxies at redshift z=0.28-1.65 (median redshift z=0.84). Our sample are representative of star-forming, main-sequence galaxies, with star-formation rates of SFR=0.1-30Mo/yr and stellar masses M=10^8-10^11Mo. For 49+/-4% of our sample, the dynamics suggest rotational support, 24+/-3% are unresolved systems and 5+/-2% appear to be early-stage major mergers with components on 8-30kpc scales. The remaining 22+/-5% appear to be dynamically complex, irregular (or face-on systems). For galaxies whose dynamics suggest rotational support, we derive inclination corrected rotational velocities and show these systems lie on a similar scaling between stellar mass and specific angular momentum as local spirals with j*=J/M*\propto M^(2/3) but with a redshift evolution that scales as j*\propto M^{2/3}(1+z)^(-1). We identify a correlation between specific angular momentum and disk stability such that galaxies with the highest specific angular momentum, log(j*/M^(2/3))>2.5, are the most stable, with Toomre Q=1.10+/-0.18, compared to Q=0.53+/-0.22 for galaxies with log(j*/M^(2/3))