On the Dearth of Compact, Massive, Red Sequence Galaxies in the Local Universe

Understand

Using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; data release 7), we have conducted a search for local analogs to the extremely compact, massive, quiescent galaxies that have been identified at z > 2.

• We show that incompleteness is a concern for such compact galaxies, particularly for low redshifts (z < ~0.05) as a result of the SDSS spectroscopic target selection algorithm.
• We have identified 63 massive red sequence galaxies at 0.066 < z < 0.12 that are smaller than the median size-mass relation by a factor of 2 or more.
• Consistent with expectations from the virial theorem, the median offset from the mass-velocity dispersion relation for these galaxies is 0.12 dex.