Bulge+disc decomposition of HFF and CANDELS galaxies: UVJ diagrams and stellar mass–size relations of galaxy components at 0.2 ≤ z ≤ 1.5

Abstract

ABSTRACT Using deep imaging from the CANDELS and HFF surveys, we present bulge+disc decompositions with galfitm for $\sim$17 000 galaxies over $0.2 \le z\le 1.5$. We use various model parameters to select reliable samples of discs and bulges, and derive their stellar masses using an empirically calibrated relation between mass-to-light ratio and colour. Across our entire redshift range, we show that discs follow stellar mass–size relations that are consistent with those of star-forming galaxies, suggesting that discs primarily evolve via star formation. In contrast, the stellar mass–size relations of bulges are mass-independent. Our novel data set further enables us to separate components into star-forming and quiescent based on their specific star formation rates. We find that both star-forming discs and star-forming bulges lie on stellar mass–size relations that are similar to those of star-forming galaxies, while quiescent discs are typically smaller than star-forming discs and lie on steeper relations, implying distinct evolutionary mechanisms. Similar to quiescent galaxies, quiescent bulges show a flattening in the stellar mass–size relation at $\sim 10^{10}$ M$_\odot$, below which they show little mass dependence. However, their best-fitting relations have lower normalizations, indicating that at a given mass, bulges are smaller than quiescent galaxies. Finally, we obtain rest-frame colours for individual components, showing that bulges typically have redder colours than discs, as expected. We visually derive UVJ criteria to separate star-forming and quiescent components and show that this separation agrees well with component colour. HFF bulge+disc decomposition catalogues used for these analyses are publicly released with this paper.