# The Colour-Magnitude Relation of Early-Type Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field

## 1 Introduction

Early-type galaxies in clusters exhibit a strong correlation between their absolute magnitudes and colours (eg., Visvanathan & Sandage 1977; Bower, Lucey, & Ellis 1992, hereafter BLE92). This correspondence is referred to as the colour-magnitude relation (CMR). The tightness of the CMR can be used to set important constraints on the star formation history of these galaxies, indicating an impressive degree of homogeneity in the formation process. The correlation is most naturally accounted for as a sequence of metal abundance, with the scatter being primarily driven by differences in galaxy age. This paradigm correctly predicts the evolution of the zero-point and slope of the relation with redshift (Kodama et al. 1998a; Stanford et al. 1998), and is supported by line index analysis of galaxies in the Fornax and Coma clusters (Kuntschner & Davies 1997; Terlevich 1998). Bower, Kodama & Terlevich (1998; hereafter BKT98) have recently reviewed the limits on formation history that can be derived from local clusters. They conclude that the small scatter of the relation implies that the bulk of the stellar populations are old, most of the stars having been formed before a look-back time of 9 Gyr ($`z1`$ with $`H_0=50`$ km/s/Mpc and $`q_0=0.5`$); although some residual star formation in a fraction of the galaxies is required to account for the increasing fraction of blue galaxies observed in the core of intermediate redshift clusters (eg., Butcher & Oemler 1984)

A key question is to determine whether the same homogeneity that is seen in the clusters extends to galaxies in lower density environments. The available evidence indicates that the CMR is present in early-type galaxies in compact groups (Zepf et al. 1991). However, comparable data-sets for genuine ‘field’ E and S0 galaxies (ie., galaxies selected along an average line of sight) is sparse. One of the most homogeneous studies is that of Larson, Tinsley & Caldwell (1980). They found that scatter of field Elliptical galaxies was greatly enhanced over equivalent galaxies in clusters; however, the same trend was not seen in the S0 galaxy population. More recent studies have concentrated on spectroscopic indicators of stellar populations. For instance, Guzman et al. (1992) report a small offset in the normalisation of the Mg<sub>2</sub>-$`\sigma `$ correlation of early-type galaxies in the core and outskirts of the Coma cluster. However, the implied differences in mean stellar population ages are smaller than 10 per cent.

In this paper we address the homogeneity of the formation of early-type galaxies in low density environments using the colours of morphologically classified E and S0 galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF; Williams et al. 1996). The galaxies are typically at redshifts of order unity, allowing us to take advantage of the large look-back time. Despite the large distances to these objects, the narrow point spread function of the Hubble Space Telescope allows accurate morphological classification. Furthermore, because these galaxies cover only a small area of sky, uncertainties in the photometric zero-point and galactic extinction do not introduce spurious scatter into the relation as they might do in the local surveys.

The plan of the paper is as follows. In § 2, we describe the method used to create the rest-frame CMR. The star formation history is derived by comparing the colour distribution with the model in § 3 and the discussion is given in § 4. Conclusions are given in § 5.

## 2 The Field Colour-Magnitude Relation at $`z=0.9`$

### 2.1 Early-type galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field

Franceschini et al. (1998; hereafter F98) define a sample of early-type galaxies in the HDF. We will regard this sample as representative of the field early-type galaxy population at $`z0.9`$. Their sample contains 35 morphologically classified early-type galaxies. Their initial selection is based on $`K`$-band surface brightness profiles from the KPNO-IRIM images of Dickinson et al. (1997), with further checks on the surface brightness profile being made using HST $`V`$ or $`I`$ band data (Fasano et al. 1998). The sample galaxies are flux-limited with $`K<20.15`$. F98 present photometry in 7 passbands from the UV to NIR ($`U_{300}`$,$`B_{450}`$,$`V_{606}`$,$`I_{814}`$,$`J`$,$`H`$,$`K`$) using a fixed $`2.5\mathrm{}`$ diameter aperture.

### 2.2 Rest-frame colours and magnitudes

Fifteen out of the 35 F98 galaxies have spectroscopic redshifts available from the literature (Cohen et al. 1996; Cowie 1998). For the remainder redshifts must be estimated using photometric redshift techniques. We use the estimator of Kodama, Bell & Bower (1998b). At $`z1`$, the bluer optical colours primarily reflect the colours of the rest frame far UV, where model colours are highly uncertain, and we therefore adopt an iterative redshift estimation scheme. We used all seven passbands from $`U_{300}`$ to $`K`$ for the first estimation. For the second estimation, we excluded the passbands which would fall below rest frame 2500 Å assuming that the first galaxy redshift estimate is reasonably close to the final redshift estimate. We used the 15 galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts in order to assess the uncertainty of the technique. The agreement between our estimates and the spectroscopic ones are generally good with redshift errors of $`\overline{|\mathrm{\Delta }z|}0.08`$. This uncertainty is propagated through to the rest frame colours and luminosities as described below. As a final check, we confirmed that our estimates are also consistent with F98’s, again with $`\overline{|\mathrm{\Delta }z|}0.1`$. So-called catastrophic redshift errors can occur when the spectra of the model templates are a poor match to the observed colours (Yee 1998; Kodama et al. 1998b), which happens predominantly with star forming late-type galaxy spectra. In this analysis, we expect that the redshift estimates of the redder, early-type galaxies will be robust to this type of error, but we bear in mind that the redshifts of the fainter, blue galaxies in our sample may be susceptible to this source of error. Our code also gives an estimate of bulge-to-total light (B/T) ratio as well as the redshift for each galaxy (Kodama et al. 1998b), which we later use to determine the K-correction for the galaxy.

K-corrections are applied to the data using evolutionary models for early-type galaxies (in which chemical evolution is taken into account) from Kodama et al. (1998a; 1998b). The model galaxy has an old bulge component with mean stellar metallicity $`\mathrm{log}Z/Z_{}=0.23`$, and a disk component. The star formation rate in the disk is regulated by the Schmidt (1959) law with a star formation timescale of 5 Gyr. The formation redshift of the galaxies is fixed at $`z_{\mathrm{form}}=4.4`$. The relative contribution of the bulge and disk component in a given galaxy (parameterised by the B/T ratio) is estimated along with the galaxy redshift, and this is then used to estimate the K-correction. In practice, the galaxies lying near the red envelope are unaffected by the details of star formation in the model galaxy since they are dominated by bulge light. Galaxies for which this correction process is potentially important lie far from the ridge-line of the main relation. Rest frame $`U`$-$`V`$ colours are estimated by K-correcting the observed colours in passbands $`(M_1,M_2)`$ chosen to bracket the rest frame 4000 Å break. We use $`(M_1,M_2)=(U_{300},V_{450})`$ for $`z<0.2`$, $`(B_{450},I_{814})`$ for $`0.2z<0.6`$, $`(V_{606},J)`$ for $`0.6z<1.3`$, $`(I_{814},J)`$ for $`1.3<z<1.6`$, and $`(I_{814},H)`$ for $`z1.6`$.

Because the sample is at a range of different redshifts in the field, it is also important to apply evolution corrections (E-corrections), so that a single coeval CMR can be constructed. For the sake of simplicity we assume, to first order, that all the galaxies are formed in a single burst at $`z=z_{\mathrm{form}}`$. Using this model, we transform the colours of all the galaxies to the median redshift of the sample to minimise the uncertainty in the E-correction. However, it is clear from the range of galaxy colours that the evolution of individual galaxies will not be well described by this model. For instance, the amount of E-correction for the bluer galaxies at lower redshift ($`z<0.9`$) will be underestimated, given that these galaxies are supposed to be younger. The colour should evolve more rapidly, be bluer, and the colour deviation from the Coma CMR at $`z=0.9`$ should be larger, compared to the passive evolution of old stellar population. We therefore use the same passive evolution correction for all the galaxies as a first approximation, and then apply an additional (smaller) correction according to the colour deviation from the red sequence.

We adopt a B/T$`=`$1.0 model and $`z_{\mathrm{form}}=4.4`$ for the primary passive evolution correction. The deviation of the galaxy from the Coma cluster CMR at $`z=0.9`$ (see below) is then used to estimate the secondary correction by multiplying by a correction factor:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(UV)_{\mathrm{corrected}}=\mathrm{\Delta }(UV)\times \frac{t_{z=z_g}t_{z=4.4}}{t_{z=0.9}t_{z=4.4}},$$
(1)   
where $`t_z`$ indicates the time from the Big Bang at a given redshift. This correction is adequate since the integrated colour $`UV`$ of a galaxy scales roughly logarithmically with age. For galaxies, lying within $`|\mathrm{\Delta }(UV)|<0.5`$ of the fiducial CMR, this correction amounts to only $`<0.1`$. We apply this additional correction only to the colour. As the slope of the CMR is quite shallow, the corresponding magnitude correction has a negligible effect on the final results, and is therefore neglected for the sake of simplicity.

The key aim of this work is to examine the spread of galaxies around the CMR defined by rich clusters. Clearly, the photometric redshift estimation method cannot determine a galaxy’s redshift precisely. All the galaxies analysed here have photometry of sufficient quality that the dominant source of uncertainty is the match between the object and model spectrum. We therefore adopt the rms difference between the spectroscopic and photometric determinations (0.08) as the uncertainty in the photometric redshifts of the remaining part of the sample. Although the spectroscopic redshifts are well determined, the rest-frame colours are still uncertain because of the metallicity of the stellar population. The age of the stellar population also introduces uncertainty, but this is degenerate with the uncertainty in metal abundance (Worthey 1994, Kodama et al. 1998b). To estimate these effects, we applied the K+E-corrections using other elliptical galaxy models with different metallicities in a range of $`0.52\mathrm{log}Z/Z_{}0.06`$, but the resultant colours and magnitudes differ by less than 0.1 mag. This shows that the corrections that we have made are relatively insensitive to the metallicity variations that drive the CMR.

Because of the evolutionary corrections, our results depend slightly on the adopted cosmological framework. For our fiducial model, we adopt an open universe with ($`H_0,q_0`$)$`=`$(64,0.1). We also consider a flat universe with ($`H_0,q_0`$)=(50,0.5). Both models give the same age of the universe at 13 Gyr. Hereafter, we use the parameter $`h`$ to mean $`H_0/100`$.

### 2.3 The colour-magnitude relation

The final $`z=0.9`$ rest-frame colours and magnitudes are shown for the fiducial model in Fig. 1. Galaxies with spectroscopically determined redshifts are shown as points, where the gray scale indicates the observed galaxy redshift. Galaxies with photometric redshifts are shown as error bars representing the estimated uncertainty in the rest-frame colour and absolute magnitude.

The ridge-line of the CMR is well defined even in field early-type galaxies at $`z=0.9`$. This is a striking result, since the existence of a well defined old stellar population at high redshifts seems contradictory to the spirit — if not the details — of hierarchical galaxy formation models (eg., White & Frenk 1991, Kauffmann, White & Guiderdoni 1993, Cole et al. 1994, Baugh et al. 1998, Kauffmann & Charlot 1998a). An important test is the comparison of field and rich cluster CMRs.

Firstly, we compare the HDF CMR with the Coma cluster. The $`z=0`$ Coma cluster relation is redder than the observed envelope by $`0.3`$ mag at a fixed luminosity. To make the comparison fair, we need to apply a correction for passive evolution in order to determine the position of the ridge-line of the Coma relation at $`z=0.9`$. This correction results in the reddest possible CMR at high redshift. To make the comparison, we use the $`UV`$ data from BLE92. However, because of the possibility of colour gradients, we must be careful to match the apertures in which colours are measured. To match the aperture adopted by F98 we use $`25\mathrm{}`$ apertures (8.4 $`h^1`$ kpc) for the $`UV`$ colour and $`32\mathrm{}`$ (10.7 $`h^1`$ kpc) apertures for the $`M_V`$ magnitude for the local Coma CMR. $`25\mathrm{}`$ is the maximum aperture that allows us to reliably measure the $`UV`$ colour. The large aperture Coma CMR is overplotted in Fig. 1. For the fiducial $`q_0=0.1`$ cosmology, the CMR just traces the reddest boundary of the HDF early-types. This suggests that at least some early-type galaxies in the HDF must be as old as those in rich clusters (provided, of course, that they obey the same mass-metallicity relation). We attempt to quantify this in §3. For $`q_0=0.5`$, the Coma relation lies blueward of many of the HDF galaxies. Taken at face value, this implies that many of the field galaxies formed their stars before the galaxies in rich clusters.

For further comparison, the CMR of a distant cluster GHO 1603+4313 at $`z=0.9`$ from Stanford et al. (1998) is also presented by applying a K-correction using $`(M_1,M_2)=(R,J)`$ and eqs. (1) and (2) in the same way as described in § 3. In this case, aperture and E-corrections are not required. The location of the relation is again consistent with the red early-types in the HDF, although there exists a slight systematic blue offset of order $``$0.1 mag with respect to the Coma CMR. Although this offset could result from observational zero-point mismatches and/or the slight model uncertainties, if we adopt this relation rather than the transformed Coma cluster relation, the HDF galaxies get older, or more metal rich than their cluster counterparts. We note that the offset disappears in the $`q_0=0.5`$ cosmology.

Although the overall impression is of a well defined CMR, there are two important differences between this relation and that seen in rich clusters. Firstly, the relation shows little evidence of a slope (although this may be masked by the large scatter). Any attempt to measure the slope is dominated by the very bright, red galaxy 4-752-1. Because the slope is so poorly determined, we adopt the slope of the Coma cluster CMR in what follows. Secondly, the relation appears to have larger scatter. This impression remains even if only the objects with spectroscopic redshifts are considered. A maximum likelihood analysis of all the galaxies that have $`UV>0.7`$ suggests an intrinsic scatter of 0.12$`\pm `$0.06 after allowing for uncertainties in the individual data points. This number, while uncertain, looks to be larger than the corresponding cluster value of $``$0.07 mag in the rest frame $`UV`$ at the same redshift $`z0.9`$ (Stanford et al. 1998). Therefore the scatter in the field, which is almost certainly no less than the corresponding scatter for the $`z=0.9`$ cluster, allows an epoch of star formation similar to, if not more extended than, the epoch of major star formation in cluster early-types. This is in qualitative agreement with hierarchical models.

## 3 Constraints on star formation history

In order to quantify the constraints that are placed on the star formation history of HDF early-type galaxies, we compare the distribution of colour deviation from the $`z=0.9`$ Coma CMR with the predictions of a number of simple models. As discussed in the introduction, we adopt a paradigm in which the colour magnitude relation in clusters is primarily driven by universal correspondence between mass and metal abundance (Kodama & Arimoto 1997; Kodama et al. 1998a; BKT98). Following BKT98, we consider two types of star formation history: a single burst model and a constant star formation (SF) model, truncated at some epoch. We randomly assign a single burst age $`t_{\mathrm{burst}}`$ between a given set of $`t_{\mathrm{burst},\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`t_{\mathrm{burst},\mathrm{max}}`$, or a truncation time $`t_{\mathrm{stop}}`$ between $`t_{\mathrm{stop},\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`t_{\mathrm{start}}`$, respectively. Note that $`t_{\mathrm{burst},\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`t_{\mathrm{start}}`$ should be less than the age of the Universe at $`z=0.9`$, which is 6.0 Gyr for ($`H_0`$,$`q_0`$)$`=`$(64, 0.1) and 5.0 Gyr for (50, 0.5), respectively. We fix the stellar metallicity at solar abundance, since we compare colour residuals from the $`z=0.9`$ CMR with the models (therefore automatically taking out, to first order, the metallicity dependence in this comparison).

Given the significant scatter of the dataset, the most appropriate method of comparing the observed colour distribution with the models is to create a cumulative histogram, and to apply a Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test to the various model distributions. This test requires that the models provide accurate absolute colours, but this should not present a problem, as our model has been demonstrated to give the correct absolute colours for distant clusters out to $`z1.2`$ (Kodama et al. 1998a). We compare the model colours with the observed ones using CMR residuals. In the comparison, we convolve a Gaussian error of $`\sigma =\pm 0.1`$ mag with the model colour in order to allow for uncertainties in the K-corrected colours caused by redshift estimation uncertainties for the red envelope galaxies.

We applied the K-S test to the observed and model histograms using various combination of ($`t_{\mathrm{burst},\mathrm{min}},t_{\mathrm{burst},\mathrm{max}}`$) or ($`t_{\mathrm{stop},\mathrm{min}},t_{\mathrm{start}}`$), putting constraints on these model parameters. A number of example histograms are presented in Fig. 2. The basic results are as follows:

* All galaxies: The observed cumulative histogram of colour residuals has a clear continuous blue tail down to $`\mathrm{\Delta }(UV)2`$. This allows for the existence of a fraction of young galaxies, and models that continue to produce galaxies until $`z=0.9`$ are acceptable. However, half of the galaxies are very red with $`|\mathrm{\Delta }(UV)|<0.2`$. In order to make these red galaxies, $`t_{\mathrm{burst},\mathrm{max}}`$ should be larger than $``$ 4.5 Gyr in the single burst model, or $`t_{\mathrm{start}}`$ should be larger than $``$ 3.5 Gyr in the constant star formation model at 3 $`\sigma `$ level. The former case corresponds to forming more than 40 per cent of the galaxies beyond $`z>2`$, while the latter case corresponds to forming more than 40 percent of stars therein in total at $`z>2`$. However note that, in any case, we do find a substantial fraction of galaxies in which all the stars would have been formed at redshifts greater than 2. The best fitting model is (single-burst, $`t_{\mathrm{burst},\mathrm{min}}=0`$ Gyr, $`t_{\mathrm{burst},\mathrm{max}}=6`$ Gyr). In this case, $``$ 60 per cent of the galaxies are older than $`z>2`$.
* Cosmology: The $`q_0=0.1`$ cosmology is preferred because the position of the ridge line matched the reddest colours expected from passive evolution. If we use a $`q_0=0.5`$ cosmology, the evolutionary correction makes the Coma CMR too blue with respect to the HDF early-type galaxies. Note, however, that the colours of these galaxies are still consistent with the Coma CMR within $``$$`\sigma `$ K-correction and photometric redshift errors.
* Bright galaxies: In this case, we use a faint cut-off of $`M_V\mathrm{log}h<19.8`$ ($`q_0=0.1`$), which roughly corresponds to 1 magnitude fainter than the local $`M_{}`$ (passively evolved out to $`z=0.9`$). The blue tail is strongly suppressed since most of the younger galaxies are also faint. Hence the fraction of old galaxies ($`z>2`$) is increased to more than 50 per cent. Their colour distribution is best fitted by (single-burst, $`t_{\mathrm{burst},\mathrm{min}}=1`$-2 Gyr, $`t_{\mathrm{burst},\mathrm{max}}=6`$-5 Gyr) or (constant-SF, $`t_{\mathrm{stop},\mathrm{min}}=0`$-1 Gyr, $`t_{\mathrm{start}}=6`$-5 Gyr). In that case 70-80 per cent of galaxies or stars therein in total are older than $`z>2`$. It is also worth pointing out that galaxies bluer than $`UV=0.5`$ will fade by at least one magnitude more than the old passively evolving galaxies before reaching the red envelope of the CMR. Thus none of the blue early-type galaxies could be the progenitor of a red object brighter than $`M_V\mathrm{log}h18.5`$.
* No peculiar galaxies: F98’s classification of the galaxies is mainly based on their surface brightness profile. We checked the HST frames in order to visually confirm the classification. Several galaxies were found to have morphological peculiarities (Table 1). Most of these objects have bluer colours. With these objects excluded, the colour distribution looks quite similar to that of the bright galaxies, and the same arguments can be applied.

In summary, the apparent tightness of the CMR is found to be able to accommodate continuous formation of early-type galaxies down to the observed epoch. However, the redness of the galaxies is a considerable constraint, and we found that at least 40 per cent of field early-type galaxies at $`z=0.9`$ or stars therein in total (not in the individual galaxy) should form beyond $`z=2`$ in order to create enough objects that are sufficiently red.

## 4 Discussion

As we have described, the colour magnitude relation of early-type galaxies in the HDF suggest a wide range of formation times, where ongoing star formation is allowed in some galaxies right up to the epoch of observation. However, the well-defined red ridge-line of field early-type galaxies visible in Fig. 1 indicates that a substantial fraction of galaxies must have been formed prior to $`z>2`$.

Our conclusions are consistent with the recent work on the HDF galaxies by Abraham et al. (1998), who concluded that 7 out of 11 $`I_{814}`$-band selected early-type galaxies are coeval and old, and 4 galaxies have had recent star formation. F98, from which we take our sample, claim that most of these galaxies have ages between 1.5 and 3.0 Gyr, corresponding to $`z_{\mathrm{form}}`$ between 1 and 3 ($`q_0=0.15`$) based on the rest-frame $`BJ`$ and $`VK`$ colours. Although their upper limit on $`z_{\mathrm{form}}`$ is slightly lower, they do have a mixture of both young and old populations. They also find that lower-mass systems preferentially form at lower redshifts, the same tendency as we have found.

The substantial fraction of red galaxies raises two questions. Firstly, is the presence of such red galaxies compatible with theories of hierarchical galaxy formation? Although Governato et al. (1998) have shown that early star formation happens in a fraction of objects, these galaxies are likely to be subsequently bound into clusters. Field early-type galaxies should have systematically younger ages than their cluster counterparts (Kauffmann 1996). To definitively rule out a particular model, however, requires the selection process to be carefully taken into account. For instance, the star formation histories of early-type galaxies in the local field may differ substantially from early-type galaxies found in the field at $`z=0.9`$. Furthermore, although our results suggest that nearly 60 per cent of early-type galaxies were formed prior to $`z=2`$, the stars in these galaxies form only a small fraction of the present day early-type population, and need not have been formed in a single monolithic unit. This is an extensive topic that we will investigate in a companion paper.

It is interesting to try to understand these results in the context of the evolution of the $`K`$-band luminosity function (Songaila et al. 1994; Cowie et al. 1996) and the space densities of red galaxies in surveys such as the Canada-France Redshift Survey (Lilly et al. 1995). The decreasing space density of red galaxies (relative to passively evolving models) have been shown to support the hierarchical picture, indicating a late formation epoch for the majority of field galaxies. Deep optical and NIR surveys find few objects red enough to be consistent with the colours of a $`z>1`$ passively evolving stellar population, again supporting a late formation epoch for field galaxies (Zepf 1997, Barger et al. 1998). However, optical-NIR colours are very sensitive to even small amounts of star formation, making these constraints relatively weak. The evolution of the $`K`$-band luminosity function is a particularly strong constraint (Kauffmann & Charlot 1998b) since it is robust to small amounts of residual star formation and has been found to be consistent with the expectations from the hierarchical clustering models. In this context, our results, which indicate a substantial old early-type population at $`z0.9`$, seem to contradict these studies.

It is possible to reconcile these apparently contradictory observations in a number of ways. It is possible that the explicit selection of morphologically early-type galaxies preferentially excludes galaxies with ongoing star formation. We would therefore be in a situation where the field early-type galaxies at $`z=0.9`$ are merely a subset of the present-day field early-type galaxies, which form from galaxies both with and without ongoing star formation at $`z=0.9`$. Alternatively, F98 suggest that the disappearance of red early-type galaxies may be due to the onset of an epoch of extreme dust reddening at $`z>1.5`$, but such a picture seems ad hoc. Another solution may be to allow a degree of merging between the early-type galaxies (eg., Menanteau et al. 1998). This would not contradict our conclusions concerning the stellar populations, and, although the process would be expected to introduce additional scatter into the CMR, the observed relation is sufficiently broad that this constraint is unimportant. Merging tends to flatten the CMR (BKT98), and in this respect it is intriguing that the HDF relation is so flat. We note that another resolution to this discrepancy could be the presence of a $`z1`$ cluster in the HDF itself. Our conclusions would then not be representative of the field (in the sense of representing an average line of sight). Although this seems unlikely, it can only be tested by extending the area over which the properties of distant early-type field galaxies can be studied. A first step in this direction will be the observation of the Hubble Deep Field South (Williams et al. 1997).

## 5 Conclusions

Using the stellar population models and photometric redshift estimators of Kodama et al. (1998a, 1998b), we constructed a colour-magnitude diagram for morphologically selected HDF early-type galaxies (as selected from F98) in the rest frame of the median redshift of the sample $`z=0.9`$. The colour-magnitude diagram constructed in this way has intrinsic scatter no smaller than the $`z=0.9`$ cluster GHO 1603+4313. Comparison of the residuals from the passively evolved Coma CMR with simple models indicate that a fraction of HDF early-types (primarily the low mass galaxies) can form continuously to the epoch of observation. However, around half of our sample must form at $`z>2`$ (although not necessarily in a monolithic unit). Reconciling this (high) fraction of old field early-types at $`z=0.9`$ with studies supporting late field galaxy formation (as in HGF models) may be possible by taking into account the morphological filtering of galaxies going into our CMR, or by relatively late merging of smaller galaxies to produce our observed early-type field sample.

## Acknowledgements

Most of this work was carried out during the Guillermo Haro Workshop ’98 at INAOE, Mexico. We thank all the organisers of this meeting for the invitation, their kind hospitality, and the financial support to attend the meeting. We are also grateful to the TMR Network Meeting on Galaxy Formation and Evolution funded by the European Commission for providing us an opportunity to develop this work. We would like to acknowledge helpful discussions with R. S. Ellis and A. Aragón-Salamanca. TK also thanks JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research Abroad for financial support. EFB would like to thank the Isle of Man Education Department for their generous support. This project made use of STARLINK computing facilities at Durham, Cambridge, and INAOE.