  We have performed a large observing campaign of intermediate-redshift disk
galaxies including spectroscopy with the FORS instruments of the VLT and
imaging with the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the HST. Our data set
comprises 113 late-type galaxies in the redshift range 0.1<z<1.0 and thereby
probes galaxy evolution over more than half the age of the universe. Spatially
resolved rotation curves have been extracted and fitted with synthetic velocity
fields that account for geometric distortions and blurring effects. With these
models, the intrinsic maximum rotation velocity Vmax was derived for 73
spirals. By comparing our sample to the Tully-Fisher Relation of local spiral
galaxies, we find evidence for a differential luminosity evolution: the massive
distant galaxies are of comparable luminosity as their present-day
counterparts, while the distant low-mass spirals are brighter than locally by
up to >2mag in rest-frame B. This evolution would be at variance with the
predictions from numerical simulations. On the other hand, the disks of the
distant galaxies are, for a given Vmax, slightly smaller than those of their
local counterparts, as expected for a hierarchical structure growth. Hence, the
discrepancy between the observations and theoretical predictions would be
limited to the properties of the stellar populations. A possible explanation
could be the suppression of star formation in low-mass disks which is not yet
properly implemented in models of galaxy evolution. (abridged)
