No Arabic abstract
We report spectroscopic redshift measurements for three bright submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) near the GOODS-N field, each with SCUBA-2 850 micron fluxes > 10 mJy, using the Northern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA). Our molecular linescan observations of these sources, which occupy a ~7 arcmin$^2$ area outside of the HST coverage of the field, reveal that two lie at $z sim$ 3.14. In the remaining object, we detect line emission consistent with CO(7-6), [C I], and H2O at $z$ = 4.42. The far-infrared spectral energy distributions of these galaxies, constrained by SCUBA-2, NOEMA, and Herschel/SPIRE, indicate instantaneous SFRs $sim4000 ~{rm M_{odot}~yr^{-1}}$ in the $z$ = 4.42 galaxy and $sim 2500~{rm M_{odot}~yr^{-1}}$ in the two $z sim$ 3.14 galaxies. Based on our sources CO line luminosities, we estimate $M_{{rm gas}}sim10^{11} M_{odot}$ and find gas depletion timescales of $tau_{{rm depl}}sim 50$ Myr, consistent with findings in other high-redshift SMGs. Finally, we show that the two $z sim$ 3.14 sources, which alone occupy a volume $sim$10 Mpc$^3$, very likely mark the location of a protocluster of bright SMGs and less dusty optical sources.
Using the IRAM NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA), we conducted a program to measure redshifts for 13 bright galaxies detected in the Herschel Astrophysical Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS) with $S_{500{mu}rm m}ge$80 mJy. We report reliable spectroscopic redshifts for 12 individual sources, which are derived from scans of the 3 and 2 mm bands, covering up to 31 GHz in each band, and are based on the detection of at least two emission lines. The spectroscopic redshifts are in the range $2.08<z<4.05$ with a median value of $z=2.9pm$0.6. The sources are unresolved or barely resolved on scales of 10 kpc. In one field, two galaxies with different redshifts were detected. In two cases the sources are found to be binary galaxies with projected distances of ~140 kpc. The linewidths of the sources are large, with a mean value for the full width at half maximum of 700$pm$300 km/s and a median of 800 km/s. We analyse the nature of the sources with currently available ancillary data to determine if they are lensed or hyper-luminous $L_{rm FIR} > 10^{13},L_odot$ galaxies. We also present a reanalysis of the spectral energy distributions including the continuum flux densities measured at 3 and 2 mm to derive the overall properties of the sources. Future prospects based on these efficient measurements of redshifts of high-z galaxies using NOEMA are outlined, including a comprehensive survey of all the brightest Herschel galaxies.
We report detections of two candidate distant submillimeter galaxies (SMGs), MM J154506.4$-$344318 and MM J154132.7$-$350320, which are discovered in the AzTEC/ASTE 1.1 mm survey toward the Lupus-I star-forming region. The two objects have 1.1 mm flux densities of 43.9 and 27.1 mJy, and have Herschel/SPIRE counterparts as well. The Submillimeter Array counterpart to the former SMG is identified at 890 $mu$m and 1.3 mm. Photometric redshift estimates using all available data from the mid-infrared to the radio suggest that the redshifts of the two SMGs are $z_{rm photo} simeq$ 4-5 and 3, respectively. Near-infrared objects are found very close to the SMGs and they are consistent with low-$z$ ellipticals, suggesting that the high apparent luminosities can be attributed to gravitational magnification. The cumulative number counts at $S_{rm 1.1mm} ge 25$ mJy, combined with other two 1.1-mm brightest sources, are $0.70 ^{+0.56}_{-0.34}$ deg$^{-2}$, which is consistent with a model prediction that accounts for flux magnification due to strong gravitational lensing. Unexpectedly, a $z > 3$ SMG and a Galactic dense starless core (e.g., a first hydrostatic core) could be similar in the mid-infrared to millimeter spectral energy distributions and spatial structures at least at $gtrsim 1$. This indicates that it is necessary to distinguish the two possibilities by means of broad band photometry from the optical to centimeter and spectroscopy to determine the redshift, when a compact object is identified toward Galactic star-forming regions.
In this first paper in the SUPER GOODS series on powerfully star-forming galaxies in the two GOODS fields, we present a deep SCUBA-2 survey of the GOODS-N at both 850 and 450 micron (central rms noise of 0.28 mJy and 2.6 mJy, respectively). In the central region the 850 micron observations cover the GOODS-N to near the confusion limit of ~1.65 mJy, while over a wider 450 arcmin^2 region---well complemented by Herschel far-infrared imaging---they have a median 4-sigma limit of 3.5 mJy. We present >4-sigma catalogs of 186 850 micron and 31 450 micron selected sources. We use interferometric observations from the SMA and the VLA to obtain precise positions for 114 SCUBA-2 sources (28 from the SMA, all of which are also VLA sources). We present new spectroscopic redshifts and include all existing spectroscopic or photometric redshifts. We also compare redshifts estimated using the 20 cm to 850 micron and the 250 micron to 850 micron flux ratios. We show that the redshift distribution increases with increasing flux, and we parameterize the dependence. We compute the star formation history and the star formation rate (SFR) density distribution functions in various redshift intervals, finding that they reach a peak at z=2-3 before dropping to higher redshifts. We show that the number density per unit volume of SFR>500 solar mass per year galaxies measured from the SCUBA-2 sample does not change much relative to that of lower SFR galaxies from UV selected samples over z=2-5, suggesting that, apart from changes in the normalization, the shape in the number density as a function of SFR is invariant over this redshift interval.
We use ultradeep 20 cm data from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array and 850 micron data from SCUBA-2 and the Submillimeter Array of an 124 arcmin^2 region of the Chandra Deep Field-north to analyze the high radio power (P_20cm>10^31 erg s^-1 Hz^-1) population. We find that 20 (42+/-9%) of the spectroscopically identified z>0.8 sources have consistent star formation rates (SFRs) inferred from both submillimeter and radio observations, while the remaining sources have lower (mostly undetected) submillimeter fluxes, suggesting that active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity dominates the radio power in these sources. We develop a classification scheme based on the ratio of submillimeter flux to radio power versus radio power and find that it agrees with AGN and star-forming galaxy classifications from Very Long Baseline Interferometry. Our results provide support for an extremely rapid drop in the number of high SFR galaxies above about a thousand solar masses per year (Kroupa initial mass function) and for the locally determined relation between X-ray luminosity and radio power for star-forming galaxies applying at high redshifts and high radio powers. We measure far-infrared (FIR) luminosities and find that some AGNs lie on the FIR-radio correlation, while others scatter below. The AGNs that lie on the correlation appear to do so based on their emission from the AGN torus. We measure a median radio size of 1.0+/-0.3 arcsecond for the star-forming galaxies. The radio sizes of the star-forming galaxies are generally larger than those of the AGNs.
We present a survey of the molecular gas in 61 submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) selected from 870$mu$m continuum surveys of the COSMOS, UDS and ECDFS fields, using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and the Northern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA). 46 $^{12}$CO ($J=$2-5) emission lines are detected in 45 of the targets at $z=$1.2-4.8, with redshifts indicating that those which are submillimetre bright and undetected/faint in the optical/near-infrared typically lie at higher redshifts, with a gradient of $Delta z/Delta S_{870}=$0.11$pm$0.04mJy$^{-1}$. We also supplement our data with literature sources to construct a statistical CO spectral line energy distribution and find the $^{12}$CO line luminosities in SMGs peak at $J_{rm up}sim$6, consistent with the Cosmic Eyelash, among similar studies. Our SMGs lie mostly on or just above the main sequence, displaying a decrease in their gas depletion timescales $t_{rm dep} = M_{rm gas}/{rm SFR}$ with redshift in the range $zsim$1-5 and a median of 200$pm$50Myr at $zsim$2.8. This coincides with an increase in molecular gas fraction $mu_{rm gas} = M_{rm gas}/M_ast$ across the same redshift range. Finally we demonstrate that the $M_{rm baryon}$-$sigma$ distribution of our SMGs is consistent with that followed by early-type galaxies in the Coma cluster, providing strong support to the suggestion that SMGs are progenitors of massive local spheroidal galaxies. On the basis of this we suggest that the SMG populations above and below an 870-$mu$m flux limit of $S_{870}sim$5mJy may correspond to the division between slow- and fast-rotators seen in local early-type galaxies.