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| Paper: |
SWAN: Galaxy Morphology and Evolution from Adaptive Optics Imaging |
| Volume: |
380, At the Edge of the Universe: Latest Results from the Deepest Astronomical Surveys |
| Page: |
503 |
| Authors: |
Cresci, G.; Davies, R.I.; Baker, A.J.; Mannucci, F.; Lehnert, M.D. |
| Abstract: |
Adaptive Optics (AO) observations provide difficult but promising ways for probing the high redshift universe. Here we present the results from adaptive optics assisted imaging in the Ks band of an area of 15 arcmin2 for SWAN (Survey of a Wide Area with NACO). This is one of the first surveys making use of AO observations to probe the early universe. We derive the high resolution near-IR morphology of ~ 400 galaxies up to Ks ~ 23.5 in the first 21 SWAN fields around bright guide stars, carefully taking into account the sur- vey selection effects and using an accurate treatment of the anisoplanatic AO PSF. The extracted morphological properties and number counts of the galaxies are compared with the predictions of different galaxy formation and evolution models. We find that a pure luminosity evolution model, without evidence for relevant number or size evolution, better reproduces the observed properties of our Ks-selected sample than current semi-analytic models based on the hierarchical picture of galaxy formation. These results demonstrate the unique power of AO observations to derive high resolution details of faint galaxies’ morphology in the near-IR, and highlights the exciting prospects of AO techniques in studies of galaxy evolution. |
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