Stellar populations of galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey up to z similar to 1 IV. Properties of quiescent galaxies on the stellar mass-size plane
Aims. We perform a comprehensive study of the stellar population properties (formation epoch, age, metallicity, and extinction) of quiescent galaxies as a function of size and stellar mass to constrain the physical mechanism governing the stellar mass assembly and the likely evolutive scenarios that explain their growth in size. Methods. After selecting all the quiescent galaxies from the ALHAMBRA survey by the dust-corrected stellar mass-colour diagram, we built a shared sample of similar to 850 quiescent galaxies with reliable measurements of sizes from the HST. This sample is complete in stellar mass and luminosity, I <= 23. The stellar population properties were retrieved using the fitting code for spectral energy distributions called MUlti-Filter FITting for stellar population diagnostics (MUFFIT) with various sets of composite stellar population models. Age, formation epoch, metallicity, and extinction were studied on the stellar mass-size plane as function of size through a Monte Carlo approach. This accounted for uncertainties and degeneracy effects amongst stellar population properties. Results. The stellar population properties of quiescent galaxies and their stellar mass and size since z similar to 1 are correlated. At fixed stellar mass, the more compact the quiescent galaxy, the older and richer in metals it is (1 Gyr and 0.1 dex, respectively). In addition, more compact galaxies may present slight lower extinctions than their more extended counterparts at the same stellar mass (<0.1 mag). By means of studying constant regions of stellar population properties across the stellar mass-size plane, we obtained empirical relations to constrain the physical mechanism that governs the stellar mass assembly of the form M-star proportional to r(c)(alpha), where alpha amounts to 0.50-0.55 +/- 0.09. There are indications that support the idea that the velocity dispersion is tightly correlated with the stellar content of galaxies. The mechanisms driving the evolution of stellar populations can therefore be partly linked to the dynamical properties of galaxies, along with their gravitational potential.© ESO 2019 ; This work has been supported by the Programa Nacional de Astronomia y Astrofisica of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO, grants AYA2012-30789 and AYA2015-66211-C2-1-P), by the Government of Aragon (Research Group E103), by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan (grant MOST 106-2628-M-001-003MY3), and by the Academia Sinica (grant AS-IA-107-M01). The authors also acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER funds through grants AYA2010-15081, AYA2010-15169, AYA2010-22111-C03-01, AYA2010-22111-C03-02, AYA2011-29517-C03-01, AYA2012-39620, AYA2013-40611-P, AYA2013-42227-P, AYA2013-43188-P, AYA2013-48623-C2-1, AYA2013-48623-C2-2, ESP2013-48274, AYA201457490-P, AYA2014-58861-C3-1, AYA2016-76682-C3-1-P, AYA2016-76682C3-3-P, AYA2016-77846-P Generalitat Valenciana projects Prometeo 2009/064 and PROMETEOII/2014/060, Junta de Andalucia grants TIC114, JA2828, P10FQM-6444, and Generalitat de Catalunya project SGR-1398. In this work we made use of the NYU Value Added Galaxy Catalogue DR7, which includes data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Funding for the SDSS has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society. The SDSS Web site is http://www.sdss.org/.The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC) for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are The University of Chicago, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, The Johns Hopkins University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the MaxPlanck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, University of Pittsburgh, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington. This publication makes use of data products from the 2MASS, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. The authors thank the constructive and fruitful comments provided by the anonymous referee that surely helped to improve this paper. Throughout this research, we made use of the Matplotlib package (Hunter 2007), a 2D graphics package used for Python that is designed for interactive scripting and quality image generation. This paper is dedicated to Marian Leon Canalejo for being there when L.A.D.G. needed her most and for her patience and continuous encouragement while finishing his PhD.
