ABSTRACT
The optical-IR images of the northern and southern Hubble Deep Fields are used to measure the spectral and density evolution of early-type galaxies. The mean spectral energy distribution is found to evolve passively toward a mid-F star-dominated spectrum by z approximately 2, becoming more sharply peaked around the 4000 Å break. We demonstrate with realistic simulations that hotter elliptical galaxies would be readily visible if evolution progressed blueward and brightward at z>2, following a standard initial mass function (IMF). The color distributions are best fitted by a "red" IMF, deficient above approximately 2 M middle dot in circle and with a spread of formation in the range 1.5