Dusty starbursts and the formation of elliptical galaxies: A SCUBA-2 survey of a z=1.46 cluster


Abstract in English

We report the results of a deep SCUBA-2 850- and 450-$mu$m survey for dust-obscured ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (U/LIRGs) in the field of the z=1.46 cluster XCS J2215.9-1738. We detect a striking overdensity of sub-millimeter sources coincident with the core of this cluster: $sim 3-4 times$ higher than expected in a blank field. We use the likely radio and mid-infrared counterparts to show that the bulk of these sub-millimeter sources have spectroscopic or photometric redshifts which place them in the cluster and that their multi-wavelength properties are consistent with this association. The average far-infrared luminosities of these galaxies are $(1.0pm0.1) times 10^{12} L_{odot}$, placing them on the U/LIRG boundary. Using the total star formation occurring in the obscured U/LIRG population within the cluster we show that the resulting mass-normalized star-formation rate for this system supports previous claims of a rapid increase in star-formation activity in cluster cores out to $zsim1.5$, which must be associated with the on-going formation of the early-type galaxies which reside in massive clusters today.

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