No Arabic abstract
We present an analysis of the molecular and atomic gas emission in the rest-frame far-infrared and sub-millimetre, from the lensed z=2.3 sub-millimetre galaxy SMM J2135-0102. We obtain very high signal-to-noise detections of 11 transitions from 3 species and limits on a further 20 transitions from 9 species. We use the 12CO, [CI] and HCN line strengths to investigate the gas mass, kinematic structure and interstellar medium (ISM) chemistry, and find strong evidence for a two-phase medium comprising a hot, dense, luminous component and an underlying extended cool, low-excitation massive component. Employing photo-dissociation region models we show that on average the molecular gas is exposed to a UV radiation field that is ~1000 x more intense than the Milky Way, with star-forming regions having a characteristic density of n~10^4 /cm^3. These conditions are similar to those found in local ULIRGs and in the central regions of typical starburst galaxies, even though the star formation rate is far higher in this system. The 12CO spectral line energy distribution and line profiles give strong evidence that the system comprises multiple kinematic components with different conditions, including temperature, and line ratios suggestive of high cosmic ray flux within clouds. We show that, when integrated over the galaxy, the gas and star-formation surface densities appear to follow the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation, although when compared to high-resolution sub-mm imaging, our data suggest that this relation breaks down on scales of <100pc. By virtue of the lens amplification, these observations uncover a wealth of information on the star formation and ISM at z~2.3 at a level of detail that has only recently become possible at z<0.1, and show the potential physical properties that will be studied in unlensed galaxies when ALMA is in full operation. (Abridged).
We conducted observations of 12CO(J=5-4) and dust thermal continuum emission toward twenty star-forming galaxies on the main sequence at z~1.4 using ALMA to investigate the properties of the interstellar medium. The sample galaxies are chosen to trace the distributions of star-forming galaxies in diagrams of stellar mass-star formation rate and stellar mass-metallicity. We detected CO emission lines from eleven galaxies. The molecular gas mass is derived by adopting a metallicity-dependent CO-to-H2 conversion factor and assuming a CO(5-4)/CO(1-0) luminosity ratio of 0.23. Molecular gas masses and its fractions (molecular gas mass/(molecular gas mass + stellar mass)) for the detected galaxies are in the ranges of (3.9-12) x 10^{10} Msun and 0.25-0.94, respectively; these values are significantly larger than those in local spiral galaxies. The molecular gas mass fraction decreases with increasing stellar mass; the relation holds for four times lower stellar mass than that covered in previous studies, and that the molecular gas mass fraction decreases with increasing metallicity. Stacking analyses also show the same trends. The dust thermal emissions were clearly detected from two galaxies and marginally detected from five galaxies. Dust masses of the detected galaxies are (3.9-38) x 10^{7} Msun. We derived gas-to-dust ratios and found they are 3-4 times larger than those in local galaxies. The depletion times of molecular gas for the detected galaxies are (1.4-36) x 10^{8} yr while the results of the stacking analysis show ~3 x 10^{8} yr. The depletion time tends to decrease with increasing stellar mass and metallicity though the trend is not so significant, which contrasts with the trends in local galaxies.
Galaxies are thought to be fed by the continuous accretion of intergalactic gas, but direct observational evidence has been elusive. The accreted gas is expected to orbit about the galaxys halo, delivering not just fuel for star-formation but also angular momentum to the galaxy, leading to distinct kinematic signatures. Here we report observations showing these distinct signatures near a typical distant star-forming galaxy where the gas is detected using a background quasar passing 26 kpc from the host. Our observations indicate that gas accretion plays a major role in galaxy growth since the estimated accretion rate is comparable to the star-formation rate.
We present results from Subaru/FMOS near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy of 118 star-forming galaxies at $zsim1.5$ in the Subaru Deep Field. These galaxies are selected as [OII]$lambda$3727 emitters at $zapprox$ 1.47 and 1.62 from narrow-band imaging. We detect H$alpha$ emission line in 115 galaxies, [OIII]$lambda$5007 emission line in 45 galaxies, and H$beta$, [NII]$lambda$6584, and [SII]$lambdalambda$6716,6731 in 13, 16, and 6 galaxies, respectively. Including the [OII] emission line, we use the six strong nebular emission lines in the individual and composite rest-frame optical spectra to investigate physical conditions of the interstellar medium in star-forming galaxies at $zsim$1.5. We find a tight correlation between H$alpha$ and [OII], which suggests that [OII] can be a good star formation rate (SFR) indicator for galaxies at $zsim1.5$. The line ratios of H$alpha$/[OII] are consistent with those of local galaxies. We also find that [OII] emitters have strong [OIII] emission lines. The [OIII]/[OII] ratios are larger than normal star-forming galaxies in the local Universe, suggesting a higher ionization parameter. Less massive galaxies have larger [OIII]/[OII] ratios. With evidence that the electron density is consistent with local galaxies, the high ionization of galaxies at high redshifts may be attributed to a harder radiation field by a young stellar population and/or an increase in the number of ionizing photons from each massive star.
We present VLT/SINFONI near-infrared (NIR) integral field spectroscopy of six $z sim 0.2$ Lyman break galaxy analogs (LBAs), from which we detect HI, HeI, and [FeII] recombination lines, and multiple H$_2$ ro-vibrational lines in emission. Pa$alpha$ kinematics reveal high velocity dispersions and low rotational velocities relative to random motions ($langle v/sigma rangle = 1.2 pm 0.8$). Matched-aperture comparisons of H$beta$, H$alpha$, and Pa$alpha$ reveal that the nebular color excesses are lower relative to the continuum color excesses than is the case for typical local star-forming systems. We compare observed HeI/HI recombination line ratios to photoionization models to gauge the effective temperatures (T$_{rm eff}$) of massive ionizing stars, finding the properties of at least one LBA are consistent with extra heating from an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and/or an overabundance of massive stars. We use H$_2$ 1-0 S($cdot$) ro-vibrational spectra to determine rotational excitation temperature $T_{rm ex} sim 2000$ K for warm molecular gas, which we attribute to UV heating in dense photon-dominated regions. Spatially resolved NIR line ratios favor excitation by massive, young stars, rather than supernovae or AGN feedback. Our results suggest that the local analogs of Lyman break galaxies are primarily subject to strong feedback from recent star formation, with evidence for AGN and outflows in some cases.
We present adaptive optics assisted, spatially resolved spectroscopy of a sample of nine H-alpha-selected galaxies at z=0.84--2.23 drawn from the HiZELS narrow-band survey. These galaxies have star-formation rates of 1-27Mo/yr and are therefore representative of the typical high-redshift star-forming population. Our ~kpc-scale resolution observations show that approximately half of the sample have dynamics suggesting that the ionised gas is in large, rotating disks. We model their velocity fields to infer the inclination-corrected, asymptotic rotational velocities. We use the absolute B-band magnitudes and stellar masses to investigate the evolution of the B-band and stellar mass Tully-Fisher relationships. By combining our sample with a number of similar measurements from the literature, we show that, at fixed circular velocity, the stellar mass of star-forming galaxies has increased by a factor 2.5 between z=2 and z=0, whilst the rest-frame B-band luminosity has decreased by a factor ~6 over the same period. Together, these demonstrate a change in mass-to-light ratio in the B-band of Delta(M/L_B)/(M/L_B)_(z=0) sim 3.5 between z=1.5 and z=0, with most of the evolution occurring below z=1. We also use the spatial variation of [NII]/Halpha to show that the metallicity of the ionised gas in these galaxies declines monotonically with galacto-centric radius, with an average Delta(log O/H)/DeltaR=-0.027+/-0.005dex/kpc. This gradient is consistent with predictions for high-redshift disk galaxies from cosmologically based hydrodynamic simulations.