Investigating The Growing Population of Massive Quiescent Galaxies at Cosmic Noon

Understand

We explore the buildup of quiescent galaxies using a sample of 28,469 massive ($M_\star \ge 10^{11}$M$_\odot$) galaxies at redshifts $1.5<z<3.0$, drawn from a 17.5 deg$^2$ area (0.33 Gpc$^3$ comoving volume at these redshifts).

• This allows for a robust study of the quiescent fraction as a function of mass at $1.5<z<3.0$ with a sample $\sim$40 times larger at log($M_{\star}$/$\rm M_{\odot}$)$\ge11.5$ than previous studies.
• We derive the quiescent fraction using three methods: specific star-formation rate, distance from the main sequence, and UVJ color-color selection.
• All three methods give similar values at $1.5<z<2.0$, however the results differ by up to a factor of two at $2.0<z<3.0$.