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

Tadayuki Kodama, Richard G. Bower, Eric F. Bell

Published 1998-10-08Version 1

We present the rest-frame colour-magnitude diagram for 35 early-type galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field with median redshift 0.9. Although with considerable scatter, a red sequence well-described by the passive evolution of an intrinsically old stellar population is observed. Comparison with the passively evolved colour-magnitude relation of the rich Coma cluster ($z=0.023$) indicates that around half of the early-type galaxies in the field at this redshift are as old as those in rich clusters.