No Arabic abstract
Dust emission at sub-millimetre wavelengths allows us to trace the early phases of star formation in the Universe. In order to understand the physical processes involved in this mode of star formation, it is essential to gain knowledge about the dark matter structures - most importantly their masses - that sub-millimetre galaxies live in. Here we use the magnification effect of gravitational lensing to determine the average mass and dust content of sub-millimetre galaxies with 250mu flux densities of S_250>15mJy selected using data from the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey. The positions of hundreds of sub-millimetre foreground lenses are cross-correlated with the positions of background Lyman-break galaxies at z~3-5 selected using optical data from the Canada-France Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey. We detect a cross-correlation signal at the 7-sigma level over a sky area of one square degree, with ~80% of this signal being due to magnification, whereas the remaining ~20% comes from dust extinction. Adopting some simple assumptions for the dark matter and dust profiles and the redshift distribution enables us to estimate the average mass of the halos hosting the sub-millimetre galaxies to be log(M_200/M_sun)=13.17+0.05-0.08(stat.) and their average dust mass fraction (at radii of >10kpc) to be M_dust/M_200~6x10^-5. This supports the picture that sub-millimetre galaxies are dusty, forming stars at a high rate, reside in massive group-sized halos, and are a crucial phase in the assembly and evolution of structure in the Universe.
The study of the magnification bias produced on high-redshift sub-millimetre galaxies by foreground galaxies through the analysis of the cross-correlation function was recently demonstrated as an interesting independent alternative to the weak-lensing shear as a cosmological probe. In the case of the proposed observable, most of the cosmological constraints mainly depend on the largest angular separation measurements. Therefore, we aim to study and correct the main large-scale biases that affect foreground and background galaxy samples to produce a robust estimation of the cross-correlation function. Then we analyse the corrected signal to derive updated cosmological constraintsWe measured the large-scale, bias-corrected cross-correlation functions using a background sample of H-ATLAS galaxies with photometric redshifts > 1.2 and two different foreground samples (GAMA galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts or SDSS galaxies with photometric ones, both in the range 0.2 < z < 0.8). These measurements are modelled using the traditional halo model description that depends on both halo occupation distribution and cosmological parameters. We then estimated these parameters by performing a Markov chain Monte Carlo under multiple scenarios to study the performance of this observable and how to improve its results. After the large-scale bias corrections, we obtain only minor improvements with respect to the previous magnification bias results, mainly confirming their conclusions: a lower bound on $Omega_m > 0.22$ at $95%$ C.L. and an upper bound $sigma_8 < 0.97$ at $95%$ C.L. (results from the $z_{spec}$ sample). However, by combining both foreground samples into a simplified tomographic analysis, we were able to obtain interesting constraints on the $Omega_m$-$sigma_8$ plane as follows: $Omega_m= 0.50_{- 0.20}^{+ 0.14}$ and $sigma_8= 0.75_{- 0.10}^{+ 0.07}$ at 68% CL.
A clean measurement of the evolution of the galaxy cluster mass function can significantly improve our understanding of cosmology from the rapid growth of cluster masses below z < 0.5. Here we examine the consistency of cluster catalogues selected from the SDSS by applying two independent gravity-based methods using all available spectroscopic redshifts from the DR10 release. First, we detect a gravitational redshift related signal for 20,119 and 13,128 clusters with spectroscopic redshifts contained in the GMBCG and redMaPPer catalogues, respectively, at a level of $sim - 10$ km s$^{-1}$. This we show is consistent with the magnitude expected using the richness-mass relations provided by the literature and after applying recently clarified relativistic and flux bias corrections. This signal is also consistent with the richest clusters in the larger catalogue of Wen et al. (2012), corresponding to $M_{200m} gtrsim 2 times 10^{14},mathrm{M}_odot,h^{-1}$, however we find no significant detection of gravitational redshift signal for less riched clusters, which may be related to bulk motions from substructure and spurious cluster detections. Second, we find all three catalogues generate mass-dependent levels of lensing magnification bias, which enhances the mean redshift of flux-selected background galaxies from the BOSS survey. The magnitude of this lensing effect is generally consistent with the corresponding richness-mass relations advocated for the surveys. We conclude that all catalogues comprise a high proportion of reliable clusters, and that the GMBCG and redMaPPer cluster finder algorithms favor more relaxed clusters with a meaningful gravitational redshift signal, as anticipated by the red-sequence colour selection of the GMBCG and redMaPPer samples.
We study the nature of rapidly star-forming galaxies at z=2 in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations, and compare their properties to observations of sub-millimetre galaxies (SMGs). We identify simulated SMGs as the most rapidly star-forming systems that match the observed number density of SMGs. In our models, SMGs are massive galaxies sitting at the centres of large potential wells, being fed by smooth infall and gas-rich satellites at rates comparable to their star formation rates (SFR). They are not typically undergoing major mergers that significantly boost their quiescent SFR, but they still often show complex gas morphologies and kinematics. Our simulated SMGs have stellar masses of log M*/Mo~11-11.7, SFRs of ~180-500 Mo/yr, a clustering length of 10 Mpc/h, and solar metallicities. The SFRs are lower than those inferred from far-IR data by a factor of 3, which we suggest may owe to one or more systematic effects in the SFR calibrations. SMGs at z=2 live in ~10^13 Mo halos, and by z=0 they mostly end up as brightest group galaxies in ~10^14 Mo halos. We predict that higher-M* SMGs should have on average lower specific SFRs, less disturbed morphologies, and higher clustering. We also predict that deeper far-IR surveys will smoothly join SMGs onto the massive end of the SFR-M* relationship defined by lower-mass z=2 galaxies. Overall, our simulated rapid star-formers provide as good a match to available SMG data as merger-based scenarios, offering an alternative scenario that emerges naturally from cosmological simulations.
We present a detection of the enhancement in the number densities of background galaxies induced from lensing magnification and use it to test the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE) inferred masses in a sample of 19 galaxy clusters with median redshift $zsimeq0.42$ selected from the South Pole Telescope SPT-SZ survey. Two background galaxy populations are selected for this study through their photometric colours; they have median redshifts ${z}_{mathrm{median}}simeq0.9$ (low-$z$ background) and ${z}_{mathrm{median}}simeq1.8$ (high-$z$ background). Stacking these populations, we detect the magnification bias effect at $3.3sigma$ and $1.3sigma$ for the low- and high-$z$ backgrounds, respectively. We fit NFW models simultaneously to all observed magnification bias profiles to estimate the multiplicative factor $eta$ that describes the ratio of the weak lensing mass to the mass inferred from the SZE observable-mass relation. We further quantify systematic uncertainties in $eta$ resulting from the photometric noise and bias, the cluster galaxy contamination and the estimations of the background properties. The resulting $eta$ for the combined background populations with $1sigma$ uncertainties is $0.83pm0.24mathrm{(stat)}pm0.074mathrm{(sys)}$, indicating good consistency between the lensing and the SZE-inferred masses. We use our best-fit $eta$ to predict the weak lensing shear profiles and compare these predictions with observations, showing agreement between the magnification and shear mass constraints. This work demonstrates the promise of using the magnification as a complementary method to estimate cluster masses in large surveys.
We present sub-mm photometry for 11 Hyperluminous Infrared Galaxies (HLIRGs) and use radiative transfer models for starbursts and AGN to investigate the IR emission. In all sources both a starburst and AGN are required to explain the IR emission. The mean starburst fraction is 35%, with a range spanning 80% starburst dominated to 80% AGN dominated. In all cases the starburst dominates at rest-frame wavelengths >50 microns, with star formation rates >500 solar masses per year. The trend of increasing AGN fraction with increasing IR luminosity seen in IRAS galaxies peaks in HLIRGs, and is not higher than the fraction seen in bright ULIRGs. The AGN and starburst luminosities correlate, suggesting that a common physical factor, plausibly the dust masses, governs their luminosities. Our results suggest that the HLIRG population is comprised both of ULIRG-like galaxy mergers, and of young galaxies going through their maximal star formation periods whilst harbouring an AGN. The coeval AGN and starburst activity in our sources implies that starburst and AGN activity, and the peak starburst and AGN luminosities, can be coeval in active galaxies generally. When extrapolated to high-z our sources have comparable sub-mm fluxes to sub-mm survey sources. At least some sub-mm survey sources are therefore likely to be comprised of similar galaxy populations to those found in the HLIRG population. It is also plausible from these results that high-z sub-mm sources harbour heavily obscured AGN. The differences in X-ray and sub-mm properties between HLIRGs at z~1 and sub-mm sources at z~3 implies evolution between the two epochs. Either the mean AGN obscuration level is greater at z~3 than at z~1, or the fraction of IR-luminous sources at z~3 that contain AGN is smaller than that at z~1.