HiZELS star-forming galaxies at z=0.8-3.3

We measure the kinematics of the ionized interstellar medium on ~1kpc scales, and show that the galaxies are turbulent, with a median ratio of rotational to dispersion support of V/{sigma}=0.82+/-0.13. We combine the dynamics with high-resolution rest-frame optical imaging and extract emission-line rotation curves.

We show that high-redshift star-forming galaxies follow a similar power-law trend in specific angular momentum with stellar mass to that of local late-type galaxies. We exploit the high resolution of our data and examine the radial distribution of angular momentum within each galaxy by constructing total angular momentum profiles. Although the stellar mass of a typical star-forming galaxy is expected to grow by a factor ~8 in the ~5Gyr between z~3.3 and z~0.8, we show that the internal distribution of angular momentum becomes less centrally concentrated in this period; that is, the angular momentum grows outwards.