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Abstract Massive quiescent galaxies at high redshift show significantly more compact morphology than their local counterparts. To examine their internal structure across a wide redshift range and investigate potential redshift dependence, we performed spatially resolved spectral energy distribution fitting using piXedfit software on massive ( log ( M * / M ⊙ ) ∼ 11 ) quiescent galaxies at 0 4 kpc), while the central regions ( r ∼ 1 kpc) remain largely unchanged, with stellar mass surface density similar to local quiescent galaxies. The estimated star formation rates are too low to explain the stellar mass growth, indicating that an additional stellar mass accumulation process, such as mergers, is necessary. We parameterize the size–mass relation of the most massive galaxies in our sample as log ( R e , mass ) ∝ α log ( M * ) and find α = 2.6 7 − 1.17 + 1.14 for z ⪅ 2, consistent with growth dominated by minor mergers, and α = 0.9 1 − 0.16 + 0.20 for z ⪆ 2, consistent with growth dominated by major mergers. These results indicate that massive quiescent galaxies originate from compact quenched systems and grow through combinations of minor and major mergers.
Haryana et al. (Wed,) studied this question.