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Register a new userBLAST05: Power Spectra of Bright Galactic Cirrus at Submillimeter Wavelengths
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We report multi-wavelength power spectra of diffuse Galactic dust emission from BLAST observations at 250, 350, and 500 microns in Galactic Plane fields in Cygnus X and Aquila. These submillimeter power spectra statistically quantify the self-similar structure observable over a broad range of scales and can be used to assess the cirrus noise which limits the detection of faint point sources. The advent of submillimeter surveys with the Herschel Space Observatory makes the wavelength dependence a matter of interest. We show that the observed relative amplitudes of the power spectra can be related through a spectral energy distribution (SED). Fitting a simple modified black body to this SED, we find the dust temperature in Cygnus X to be 19.9 +/- 1.3 K and in the Aquila region 16.9 +/- 0.7 K. Our empirical estimates provide important new insight into the substantial cirrus noise that will be encountered in forthcoming observations.
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High-redshift quasars are important to study galaxy and active galactic nuclei (AGN) evolution, test cosmological models, and study supermassive black hole growth. Optical searches for high-redshift sources have been very successful, but radio searches are not hampered by dust obscuration and should be more effective at finding sources at even higher redshifts. Identifying high-redshift sources based on radio data is, however, not trivial. Here we report on new multi-frequency Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) observations of eight z>4.5 sources previously studied at high angular resolution with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). Combining these observations with those from the literature, we construct broad-band radio spectra of all 30 z>4.5 sources that have been observed with VLBI. In the sample we found flat, steep and peaked spectra in approximately equal proportions. Despite several selection effects, we conclude that the z>4.5 VLBI (and likely also non-VLBI) sources have diverse spectra and that only about a quarter of the sources in the sample have flat spectra. Previously, the majority of high-redshift radio sources were identified based on their ultra-steep spectra (USS). Recently a new method has been proposed to identify these objects based on their megahertz-peaked spectra (MPS). Neither method would have identified more than 18% of the high-redshift sources in this sample. More effective methods are necessary to reliably identify complete samples of high-redshift sources based on radio data.
The majority of the ultimate main-sequence mass of a star is assembled in the protostellar phase, where a forming star is embedded in an infalling envelope and encircled by a protoplanetary disk. Studying mass accretion in protostars is thus a key to understanding how stars gain their mass and ultimately how their disks and planets form and evolve. At this early stage, the dense envelope reprocesses most of the luminosity generated by accretion to far-infrared and submillimeter wavelengths. Time-domain photometry at these wavelengths is needed to probe the physics of accretion onto protostars, but variability studies have so far been limited, in large part because of the difficulty in accessing these wavelengths from the ground. We discuss the scientific progress that would be enabled with far-infrared and submillimeter programs to probe protostellar variability in the nearest kiloparsec.
Radio images of the Galactic Center supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), are dominated by interstellar scattering. Previous studies of Sgr A* have adopted an anisotropic Gaussian model for both the intrinsic source and the scattering, and they have extrapolated the scattering using a purely $lambda^2$ scaling to estimate intrinsic properties. However, physically motivated source and scattering models break all three of these assumptions. They also predict that refractive scattering effects will be significant, which have been ignored in standard model fitting procedures. We analyze radio observations of Sgr A* using a physically motivated scattering model, and we develop a prescription to incorporate refractive scattering uncertainties when model fitting. We show that an anisotropic Gaussian scattering kernel is an excellent approximation for Sgr A* at wavelengths longer than 1cm, with an angular size of $(1.380 pm 0.013) lambda_{rm cm}^2,{rm mas}$ along the major axis, $(0.703 pm 0.013) lambda_{rm cm}^2,{rm mas}$ along the minor axis, and a position angle of $81.9^circ pm 0.2^circ$. We estimate that the turbulent dissipation scale is at least $600,{rm km}$, with tentative support for $r_{rm in} = 800 pm 200,{rm km}$, suggesting that the ion Larmor radius defines the dissipation scale. We find that the power-law index for density fluctuations in the scattering material is $beta < 3.47$, shallower than expected for a Kolmogorov spectrum ($beta=11/3$), and we estimate $beta = 3.38^{+0.08}_{-0.04}$ in the case of $r_{rm in} = 800,{rm km}$. We find that the intrinsic structure of Sgr A* is nearly isotropic over wavelengths from 1.3mm to 1.3cm, with a size that is roughly proportional to wavelength. We discuss implications for models of Sgr A*, for theories of interstellar turbulence, and for imaging Sgr A* with the Event Horizon Telescope.
We describe the search for Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) near the sub-millimeter bright starburst galaxy HFLS3 at $z$$=$6.34 and a study on the environment of this massive galaxy during the end of reionization.We performed two independent selections of LBGs on images obtained with the textit{Gran Telescopio Canarias} (GTC) and the textit{Hubble Space Telescope} (HST) by combining non-detections in bands blueward of the Lyman-break and color selection. A total of 10 objects fulfilling the LBG selection criteria at $z$$>$5.5 were selected over the 4.54 and 55.5 arcmin$^2$ covered by our HST and GTC images, respectively. The photometric redshift, UV luminosity, and the star-formation rate of these sources were estimated with models of their spectral energy distribution. These $z$$sim$6 candidates have physical properties and number densities in agreement with previous results. The UV luminosity function at $z$$sim$6 and a Voronoi tessellation analysis of this field shows no strong evidence for an overdensity of relatively bright objects (m$_{F105W}$$<$25.9) associated with textit{HFLS3}. However, the over-density parameter deduced from this field and the surface density of objects can not excluded definitively the LBG over-density hypothesis. Moreover we identified three faint objects at less than three arcseconds from textit{HFLS3} with color consistent with those expected for $z$$sim$6 galaxies. Deeper data are needed to confirm their redshifts and to study their association with textit{HFLS3} and the galaxy merger that may be responsible for the massive starburst.
We present a list of 13 candidate gravitationally lensed submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) from 95 square degrees of the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey, a surface density of 0.14pm0.04deg^{-2}. The selected sources have 500um flux densities (S_500) greater than 100mJy. Gravitational lensing is confirmed by follow-up observations in 9 of the 13 systems (70%), and the lensing status of the four remaining sources is undetermined. We also present a supplementary sample of 29 (0.31pm0.06deg^{-2}) gravitationally lensed SMG candidates with S_500=80--100mJy, which are expected to contain a higher fraction of interlopers than the primary candidates. The number counts of the candidate lensed galaxies are consistent with a simple statistical model of the lensing rate, which uses a foreground matter distribution, the intrinsic SMG number counts, and an assumed SMG redshift distribution. The model predicts that 32--74% of our S_500>100mJy candidates are strongly gravitationally lensed (mu>2), with the brightest sources being the most robust; this is consistent with the observational data. Our statistical model also predicts that, on average, lensed galaxies with S_500=100mJy are magnified by factors of ~9, with apparently brighter galaxies having progressively higher average magnification, due to the shape of the intrinsic number counts. 65% of the sources are expected to have intrinsic 500micron flux densities less than 30mJy. Thus, samples of strongly gravitationally lensed SMGs, such as those presented here, probe below the nominal Herschel detection limit at 500 micron. They are good targets for the detailed study of the physical conditions in distant dusty, star-forming galaxies, due to the lensing magnification, which can lead to spatial resolutions of ~0.01 in the source plane.
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