What Are the Progenitors of Compact, Massive, Quiescent Galaxies at z=2.3? The Population of Massive Galaxies at z>3 from NMBS and CANDELS

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[Abridged] Using public data from the NMBS and CANDELS surveys, we study the population of massive galaxies at z>3 to identify the potential progenitors of z~2 compact, massive, quiescent (CMQ) galaxies, furthering our understanding of the evolution of massive galaxies.

• Our work is enabled by high-resolution CANDELS images and accurate photometric redshifts, stellar masses and star formation rates (SFRs) from 37-band NMBS photometry.
• The total number of z>3 massive galaxies is consistent with the number of massive quiescent (MQ) galaxies at z~2, implying that the SFRs for all of these galaxies must be much lower by z~2.
• We discover 4 CMQ galaxies at z>3, pushing back the time for which such galaxies have been observed.