Tracing the Mass-Assembly History of Galaxies with Deep Surveys

Abstract

We use the optical and near-infrared galaxy samples from the Munich Near-Infrared Cluster Survey (MUNICS), the FORS Deep Field (FDF) and GOODS-S to probe the stellar mass assembly history of field galaxies out to z ~ 5. Combining information on the galaxies' stellar mass with their star-formation rate and the age of the stellar population, we can draw important conclusions on the assembly of the most massive galaxies in the universe: These objects contain the oldest stellar populations at all redshifts probed. Furthermore, we show that with increasing redshift the contribution of star-formation to the mass assembly for massive galaxies increases dramatically, reaching the era of their formation at z ~ 2 and beyond. These findings can be interpreted as evidence for an early epoch of star formation in the most massive galaxies in the universe.