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The dominant role of mergers in the size evolution of massive early-type galaxies sincez ~ 1
Journal article published in 2012 by
C. López-Sanjuan,
O. Le Fèvre,
O. Ilbert,
L. A. M. Tasca,
C. Bridge,
O. Cucciati,
P. Kampczyk,
L. Pozzetti,
C. K. Xu,
C. M. Carollo,
T. Contini,
J.-P. Kneib 
,
S. J. Lilly,
V. Mainieri,
A. Renzini
and other authors.
,
S. J. Lilly,
V. Mainieri,
A. Renzini
and other authors.
Abstract
In this paper we measure the merger fraction and rate, both minor and major, of massive early-type galaxies (M_star >= 10^11 M_Sun) in the COSMOS field, and study their role in mass and size evolution. We use the 30-band photometric catalogue in COSMOS, complemented with the spectroscopy of the zCOSMOS survey, to define close pairs with a separation 10h^-1 kpc = 1/4) and minor (1/10 = 1/10 mergers can explain ~55% of the observed size evolution of these galaxies since z ~ 1. Another ~20% is due to the progenitor bias (younger galaxies are more extended) and we estimate that very minor mergers (mu