Evolution of the dependence of rest-frame color and morphology distribution on stellar mass for galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field-North

Using very deep Subaru K'-band imaging and archival Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2/NICMOS data of the Hubble Deep Field-North, we investigate the evolution of the stellar mass, color, and morphology of galaxies to z ∼ 3. We mainly examine the rest-frame U - V color distribution of galaxies as a function of stellar mass. At 0.3 ≤ z≤ 2, galaxies seem to be divided into the two populations at around the stellar mass of ∼5 × 10⁹ M _⊙. The low-mass galaxies have relatively bluer rest-frame U - V color, and their color does not show a clear correlation with stellar mass over the range 10⁸ to 5 × 10⁹ M_⊙. On the other hand, at higher mass, the more massive galaxies tend to have redder U - V color. The average U - V color of the low-mass galaxies gradually becomes bluer with redshift, from U - V ∼0.2 at z∼0.5 to U - V ∼ -0.2 at z ∼ 2. However, the correlation between the stellar mass and rest-frame U - V color of the high-mass population does not seem to change significantly between z ∼ 0.3 and z ∼ 2. The morphological distribution shows that at z ≤ 1, the low-mass population is dominated by disk galaxies, while the fraction of early-type galaxies is larger in the high-mass population. At 1 < z < 2, although the fraction of irregular galaxies increases, a similar trend is observed. At z > 2, it is seen that more massive galaxies tend to have redder U - V color over the range 10⁹-10¹⁰ M_⊙, although we can only sample galaxies with stellar mass larger than ∼ 1 × 10⁹ M_⊙. These results suggest that the star formation history of galaxies depends greatly on their stellar mass. The low-mass population is likely to have a relatively long star formation timescale, and under the assumption of a constant star formation rate, their formation redshifts do not seem to be much higher than z ∼ 2. At stellar masses larger than ∼5 × 10⁹ M_⊙, there must be some mechanism that suppresses star formation in galaxies at 0 < z < 2.