Empirical measurements of massive galaxy and active galaxy evolution

Using new wide-area galaxy redshift surveys, we explore the evolution of the most massive galaxies and the most luminous quasars in the universe over much of cosmic history. Quasars and massive red galaxies both are extremes; the most luminous high redshift quasars likely play a key role in shaping their nearby environment and the universe as a whole. The most massive galaxies represent the end points of galaxy evolution and contain a fossil record of the galaxy evolution process.;Using the AGES redshift survey completed with the MMT and the Hectospec multi-object spectrograph as well as new z-band observations of the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey Bootes field, we report the discovery of three new quasars at z > 5. We explore new mid-infrared selection in light of these three new quasars and place constraints on the slope of the high-redshift quasar luminosity function.;At lower redshift (0.1< z <0.4) we measure the scatter in red galaxy colors around the optical red-sequence using imaging and spectroscopy from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. With our sample of nearly 20,000 massive early-type galaxies (L ≳ 2.2L*), we find that the scatter around the color-magnitude relation is quite small in colors studied. Each of three model star formation histories can reproduce the scatter we measure, none of the models produce color distributions matching those observed.;We measure the evolution of the LRG luminosity function in the redshift range 0.1< z <0.9. We find that the LRG population has evolved little beyond the passive fading of its stellar populations since z ∼ 0.9. The most massive (L > 3L*) red galaxies have grown by less than 50% (at 99% confidence) since z = 0.9 in stark contrast to the factor of 2 to 4 growth observed in the L* red galaxy population over the same epoch.;Finally, we introduce the PRIsm MUlti-object Survey (PRIMUS), a new redshift survey aimed at collecting ∼300,000 galaxy spectra over 10 deg 2 to z ∼ 1. We summarize the current status of PRIMUS observations and data reductions and present several survey statistics. PRIMUS is the largest existing redshift survey at intermediate redshift and holds the largest sample of redshifts for Spitzer and X-ray detected objects.