Measurements of far-UV emission from elliptical galaxies at z=0.375

The "UV upturn" is a sharp rise in spectra of elliptical galaxies shortward of rest-frame 2500 Angstrom. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nearby giant elliptical galaxies and is thought to arise primarily from low-mass evolved stars on the extreme horizontal branch and beyond. Models suggest that the UV upturn is a very strong function of age for these old stellar populations, increasing as the galaxy gets older. In some models, the change in UV/optical flux ratio is a factor of 25 over timescales of less than 3 Gyr. To test the predictions for rapid evolution of the UV upturn, we have observed a sample of normal elliptical galaxies in the z = 0.375 cluster Abell 370 with the Faint Object Camera aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. A combination of two long-pass filters was used to isolate wavelengths shortward of rest-frame 2700 Angstrom, providing a measurement of the UV upturn at a lookback time of approximately 4 Gyr. Surprisingly, the four elliptical galaxies observed show a range of UV upturn strength that is similar to that seen in nearby elliptical galaxies, with an equivalent m(1550) - V color ranging from 2.9 to 3.4 mag. Our result is inconsistent with some models for the UV upturn; other models are consistent only for a high redshift of formation (z(f) greater than or equal to 4).