CHILES XII: The H I evolution of Luminous Compact Blue Galaxies between 0<z<0.48

Abstract

We study the evolution of Luminous Compact Blue Galaxies (LCBGs) by making use of H I emission line data provided by the full 856 h COSMOS H I Large Extragalactic Survey (CHILES), which spans a redshift range of $0\leq z\leq 0.48$ within the COSMOS field. We report the results on a cubelet stacking analysis, which we use to estimate the average H I mass evolution of LCBGs in the field up to $z=0.48$. For the stacks that do not show a detection, we report an upper limit estimate of the average H I mass. We also report on two directly detected LCBGs. We find the average H I mass in LCBGs at redshifts $z=0.26$, $z=0.35$ and $z=0.45$ respectively to be $\langle M_{\rm HI}\rangle<4.89\times10^9$ M$_\odot$, $\langle M_{\rm HI}\rangle=(2.49\pm0.75)\times10^9$ M$_\odot$ and $\langle M_{\rm HI}\rangle=(6.44\pm2.71)\times10^9$ M$_\odot$. We see no strong evidence for evolution in the average H I mass over this redshift range, consistent with other recent studies of the evolution of the H I in galaxies at $z<0.5$. On average, LCBGs appear to retain substantial gas reservoirs, with gas fractions staying constant and remaining broadly consistent with those of the larger star-forming population. LCBG gas depletion timescales are nearly an order of magnitude shorter than in normal star-forming galaxies across the studied redshift range, aligning with the period during which their number density drops sharply.