Red Nuggets - Hunting for Untouched Survivors from the Early Universe

Krzysztof Lisiecki, Katarzyna Małek, Małgorzata Siudek, Agnieszka Pollo, Agata Karska and Janusz Krywult

In order to understand the history of our Universe we attempt to trace different stages of evolution of different types of galaxies as a function of time. While we can easily detect and analyze sources at low redshift, at high redshift we face strong barriers due to the resolution and detection limits. Now, we finally have an opportunity to see those objects due to the technical progress of astronomical instruments. Recently, astronomers found a new population of compact and massive galaxies - “red nuggets”. These specific objects are believed to evolve undisturbed from early cosmic epochs and represent a unique laboratory to study how the first massive galaxies formed and evolved. Here, we present the process of searching for the red nuggets in the sample of ∼90 k galaxies in VIPERS, a spectroscopic survey at redshift 0.5 < z < 1.2. We present currently the largest sample of 77 red nugget candidates at redshift z∼0.7.

Proceedings of the Polish Astronomical Society, vol. 12, 63-65 (2022)

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