We present near–IR images , obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ) and the WFC3/IR camera , of six passive and massive galaxies at redshift 1.3 < z < 2.4 ( SSFR < 10 ^ { -2 } Gyr ^ { -1 } ; stellar mass M \sim 10 ^ { 11 } M _ { \odot } ) , selected from the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey ( GOODS ) .
These images , which have a spatial resolution of \sim 1.5 kpc , provide the deepest view of the optical rest–frame morphology of such systems to date .
We find that the light profile of these galaxies is regular and well described by a Sérsic model with index typical of today ’ s spheroids .
Their size , however , is generally much smaller than today ’ s early types of similar stellar mass , with four out of six galaxies having r _ { e } \sim 1 kpc or less , in quantitative agreement with previous similar measures made at rest–frame UV wavelengths .
The images reach limiting surface brightness \mu \sim 26.5 mag arcsec ^ { -2 } in the F160W bandpass ; yet , there is no evidence of a faint halo in the galaxies of our sample , even in their stacked image .
We also find that these galaxies have very weak “ morphological k –correction ” between the rest–frame UV ( from the ACS z –band ) , and the rest–frame optical ( WFC3 H –band ) : the Sérsic index , physical size and overall morphology are independent or only mildly dependent on the wavelength , within the errors .