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Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto

Bulgeless Galaxies at Intermediate Redshift: Sample Selection, Colour Properties, and the Existence of Powerful AGN

L. Bizzocchi, M. E. Filho, E. Leonardo, M. Grossi, R. L. Griffith, J. Afonso, C. S. Fernandes, J. Retrê, S. Antón, E. F. Bell, J. Brinchmann, B. Henriques, C. Lobo, H. Messias

Abstract
We present a catalog of bulgeless galaxies, which includes 19,225 objects selected in four of the deepest, largest multi-wavelength data sets available—COSMOS, AEGIS, GEMS, and GOODS—at intermediate redshift (0.4 ≤ z ≤ 1.0). The morphological classification was provided by the Advanced Camera for Surveys General Catalog (ACS-GC), which used publicly available data obtained with the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. Rest-frame photometric quantities were derived using kcorrect. We analyze the properties of the sample and the evolution of pure-disk systems with redshift. Very massive [log (M/M) > 10.5] bulgeless galaxies contribute to ~30% of the total galaxy population number density at z ≥ 0.7, but their number density drops substantially with decreasing redshift. We show that only a negligible fraction of pure disks appear to be quiescent systems, and red sequence bulgeless galaxies show indications of dust-obscured star formation. X-ray catalogs were used to search for X-ray emission within our sample. After visual inspection and detailed parametric morphological fitting we identify 30 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that reside in galaxies without a classical bulge. The finding of such peculiar objects at intermediate redshift shows that while AGN growth in merger-free systems is a rare event (0.2% AGN hosts in this sample of bulgeless galaxies), it can indeed happen relatively early in the history of the universe.

Keywords
catalogs – galaxies: evolution – galaxies: structure – X-rays: galaxies

The Astrophysical Journal
Volume 782, Page 22_1
February 2014

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