The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS): Downsizing of the blue cloud and the influence of galaxy size on mass quenching over the last eight billion years

Understand

We use the full VIPERS redshift survey in combination with SDSS-DR7 to explore the relationships between star-formation history (using d4000), stellar mass and galaxy structure, and how these relationships have evolved since z~1.

• We trace the extents and evolutions of both the blue cloud and red sequence, by fitting double Gaussians to the d4000 distribution of galaxies in narrow stellar mass bins, for four redshift intervals over 0<z<1.
• This reveals downsizing in star formation, as the high-mass limit of the blue cloud retreats steadily with time from M*~10^11.2 M_sun at z~0.9 to M*~10^10.7 M_sun by the present day.
• The number density of massive blue-cloud galaxies (M*>10^11 M_sun, d4000<1.55) drops sharply by a factor five between z~0.8 and z~0.5.