Measuring the Average Evolution of Luminous Galaxies atz< 3: The Rest‐Frame Optical Luminosity Density, Spectral Energy Distribution, and Stellar Mass Density

(Abridged) We present the evolution of the volume averaged properties of therest-frame optically luminous galaxy population to z~3, determined from fourdisjoint deep fields with optical to near-infrared wavelength coverage. Weselect galaxies above a rest-frame V-band luminosity of 3x10^10 Lsol andcharacterize their rest-frame UV through optical properties via the meanspectral energy distribution (SED). To measure evolution we apply the sameselection criteria to a sample of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveyand COMBO-17. The mean rest-frame 2200Ang through V-band SED becomes steadilybluer with increasing redshift but at z<3 the mean SED falls within the rangedefined by ``normal'' galaxies in the nearby Universe. We measure stellarmass-to-light ratios (Mstar/L) by fitting models to the rest-frame UV-opticalSEDs and derive the stellar mass density. The stellar mass density in luminousgalaxies has increased by a factor of 3.5-7.9 from z=3 to z=0.1, includingfield-to-field variance uncertainties. After correcting to total, the measuredmass densities at z<2 lie below the integral of the star formation rate (SFR)density as a function of redshift as derived from UV selected samples. This mayindicate a systematic error in the mass densities or SFR(z) estimates. We findlarge discrepancies between recent model predictions for the evolution of themass density and our results, even when our observational selection is appliedto the models. Finally we determine that Distant Red Galaxies (selected to haveJ_s - K_s>2.3) in our LV selected samples contribute 30% and 64% of the stellarmass budget at z~2 and z~ 2.8 respectively. These galaxies are largely absentfrom UV surveys and this result highlights the need for mass selection of highredshift galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, 24 pages, 16 figure