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Register a new userModelling high resolution ALMA observations of strongly lensed highly star forming galaxies detected by Herschel
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We have modelled high resolution ALMA imaging of six strong gravitationally lensed galaxies detected by the Herschel Space Observatory. Our modelling recovers mass properties of the lensing galaxies and, by determining magnification factors, intrinsic properties of the lensed sub-millimetre sources. We find that the lensed galaxies all have high ratios of star formation rate to dust mass, consistent with or higher than the mean ratio for high redshift sub-millimetre galaxies and low redshift ultra-luminous infra-red galaxies. Source reconstruction reveals that most galaxies exhibit disturbed morphologies. Both the cleaned image plane data and the directly observed interferometric visibilities have been modelled, enabling comparison of both approaches. In the majority of cases, the recovered lens models are consistent between methods, all six having mass density profiles that are close to isothermal. However, one system with poor signal to noise shows mildly significant differences.
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We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 860 micrometer imaging of four high-redshift (z=2.8-5.7) dusty sources that were detected using the South Pole Telescope (SPT) at 1.4 mm and are not seen in existing radio to far-infrared catalogs. At 1.5 arcsec resolution, the ALMA data reveal multiple images of each submillimeter source, separated by 1-3 arcsec, consistent with strong lensing by intervening galaxies visible in near-IR imaging of these sources. We describe a gravitational lens modeling procedure that operates on the measured visibilities and incorporates self-calibration-like antenna phase corrections as part of the model optimization, which we use to interpret the source structure. Lens models indicate that SPT0346-52, located at z=5.7, is one of the most luminous and intensely star-forming sources in the universe with a lensing corrected FIR luminosity of 3.7 X 10^13 L_sun and star formation surface density of 4200 M_sun yr^-1 kpc^-2. We find magnification factors of 5 to 22, with lens Einstein radii of 1.1-2.0 arcsec and Einstein enclosed masses of 1.6-7.2x10^11 M_sun. These observations confirm the lensing origin of these objects, allow us to measure the their intrinsic sizes and luminosities, and demonstrate the important role that ALMA will play in the interpretation of lensed submillimeter sources.
Nuclear activity and star formation play relevant roles in the early stages of galaxy formation. We aim at identifying them in high redshift galaxies by exploiting high-resolution and sensitivity X-ray and mm data to confirm their presence and relative role in contributing to the galaxy SEDs and energy budget. We present the data, model and analysis in the X-ray and mm bands for two strongly lensed galaxies, SDP.9 and SDP.11, selected in the Herschel-ATLAS catalogues as having an excess emission in the mid-IR regime at z>1.5, suggesting nuclear activity in the early stages of galaxy formation. We observed both of them in X-ray with Chandra and analyzed the high-resolution mm data available in the ALMA Science Archive for SDP9, and, by combining the information available, we reconstructed the source morphology. Both the targets were detected in the X-ray, strongly indicating the presence of highly obscured nuclear activity. High resolution ALMA observations for SDP9 in continuum and CO(6-5) spectral line allowed us to estimate the lensed galaxy redshift to a better accuracy than pre-ALMA estimates and to model the emission of the optical, mm, and X-ray band emission for this galaxy. We demonstrated that the X-ray emission is generated in the nuclear environment and it strongly support the presence of nuclear activity in this object. Hence, we identified weak nuclear activity associated with high-z galaxies with large star formation rates, useful to extend the investigation of the relationship between star formation and nuclear activity to two intrinsically less luminous, high-z star forming galaxies than was possible so far. Given our results only for two objects, they solely cannot constrain the evolutionary models, but provide us with interesting hints and set an observational path towards addressing the role of star formation and nuclear activity in forming galaxies.
The Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES) has identified large numbers of dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) over a wide range in redshift. A detailed understanding of these DSFGs is hampered by the limited spatial resolution of Herschel. We present 870um 0.45 resolution imaging from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) of 29 HerMES DSFGs with far-infrared (FIR) flux densities in between the brightest of sources found by Herschel and fainter DSFGs found in ground-based sub-millimeter (sub-mm) surveys. We identify 62 sources down to the 5-sigma point-source sensitivity limit in our ALMA sample (sigma~0.2mJy), of which 6 are strongly lensed (showing multiple images) and 36 experience significant amplification (mu>1.1). To characterize the properties of the ALMA sources, we introduce and make use of uvmcmcfit, a publicly available Markov chain Monte Carlo analysis tool for interferometric observations of lensed galaxies. Our lens models tentatively favor intrinsic number counts for DSFGs with a steep fall off above 8mJy at 880um. Nearly 70% of the Herschel sources comprise multiple ALMA counterparts, consistent with previous research indicating that the multiplicity rate is high in bright sub-mm sources. Our ALMA sources are located significantly closer to each other than expected based on results from theoretical models as well as fainter DSFGs identified in the LABOCA ECDFS Submillimeter Survey. The high multiplicity rate and low projected separations argue in favor of interactions and mergers driving the prodigious emission from the brightest DSFGs as well as the sharp downturn above S_880=8mJy.
High-redshift dusty star-forming galaxies with very high star formation rates (500 -- 3000 M$_odot$ yr$^{-1}$) are key to understanding the formation of the most extreme galaxies in the early Universe. Characterising the gas reservoir of these systems can reveal the driving factor behind the high star formation. Using molecular gas tracers like high-J CO lines, neutral carbon lines and the dust continuum, we can estimate the gas density and radiation field intensity in their interstellar medium. In this paper, we present high resolution($sim$0.4) observations of CO(7-6), [CI](2-1) and dust continuum of 3 lensed galaxies from the SPT-SMG sample at z$sim$3 with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. Our sources have high intrinsic star-formation rates (>850 M$_odot$ yr$^{-1}$) and rather short depletion timescales (<100 Myr). Based on the $rm L_{[rm CI](2-1)}/ rm L_{rm CO(7-6)}$ and $rm L_{[rm CI](2-1)}/rm L_{rm IR}$ ratios, our sample galaxies exhibit higher radiation field intensity compared to other submillimetre galaxies but have similar gas densities. We perform visibility-based lens modelling on these objects to reconstruct the kinematics in the source plane. We find that the cold gas masses of the sources are compatible with simple dynamical mass estimates using ULIRG-like values of the CO-H$_2$ conversion factor $alpha_{rm CO}$ but not Milky Way-like values. We find diverse source kinematics in our sample: SPT0103-45 and SPT2147-50 are likely rotating disks while SPT2357-51 is a probable major merger. The analysis presented in the paper could be extended to a larger sample to determine better statistics of morphologies and interstellar medium properties of high-z dusty star-forming galaxies.
Star formation occurs on physical scales corresponding to individual star forming regions, typically of order ~100 parsecs in size, but current observational facilities cannot resolve these scales within field galaxies beyond the local universe. However, the magnification from strong gravitational lensing allows us to measure the properties of these discrete star forming regions within galaxies in the distant universe. New results from multi-wavelength spectroscopic studies of a sample of extremely bright, highly magnified lensed galaxies are revealing the complexity of star formation on sub-galaxy scales during the era of peak star formation in the universe. We find a wide range of properties in the rest-frame UV spectra of individual galaxies, as well as in spectra that originate from different star forming regions within the same galaxy. Large variations in the strengths and velocity structure of Lyman-alpha and strong P Cygni lines such as C IV, and MgII provide new insights into the astrophysical relationships between extremely massive stars, the elemental abundances and physical properties of the nebular gas those stars ionize, and the galactic-scale outflows they power.
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