No Arabic abstract
High-redshift, luminous, dusty star forming galaxies (DSFGs) constrain the extremity of galaxy formation theories. The most extreme are discovered through follow-up on candidates in large area surveys. Here we present 850 $mu$m SCUBA-2 follow-up observations of 188 red DSFG candidates from the textit{Herschel} Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES) Large Mode Survey, covering 274 deg$^2$. We detected 87 per cent with a signal-to-noise ratio $>$ 3 at 850~$mu$m. We introduce a new method for incorporating the confusion noise in our spectral energy distribution fitting by sampling correlated flux density fluctuations from a confusion limited map. The new 850~$mu$m data provide a better constraint on the photometric redshifts of the candidates, with photometric redshift errors decreasing from $sigma_z/(1+z)approx0.21$ to $0.15$. Comparison spectroscopic redshifts also found little bias ($langle (z-z_{rm spec})/(1+z_{rm spec})rangle = 0.08 $). The mean photometric redshift is found to be 3.6 with a dispersion of $0.4$ and we identify 21 DSFGs with a high probability of lying at $z > 4$. After simulating our selection effects we find number counts are consistent with phenomenological galaxy evolution models. There is a statistically significant excess of WISE-1 and SDSS sources near our red galaxies, giving a strong indication that lensing may explain some of the apparently extreme objects. Nevertheless, our sample should include examples of galaxies with the highest star formation rates in the Universe ($gg10^3$ M$_odot$yr$^{-1}$).
We present SCUBA-2 850-$mu$m observations of 13 candidate starbursting protoclusters selected using Planck and Herschel data. The cumulative number counts of the 850-$mu$m sources in 9/13 of these candidate protoclusters show significant overdensities compared to the field, with the probability $<$10$^{-2}$ assuming the sources are randomly distributed in the sky. Using the 250-, 350-, 500- and 850-$mu$m flux densities, we estimate the photometric redshifts of individual SCUBA-2 sources by fitting spectral energy distribution (SED) templates with an MCMC method. The photometric redshift distribution, peaking at $2<z<3$, is consistent with that of known $z>2$ protoclusters and the peak of the cosmic star-formation rate density (SFRD). We find that the 850-$mu$m sources in our candidate protoclusters have infrared luminosities of $L_{mathrm{IR}}gtrsim$10$^{12}L_{odot}$ and star-formation rates of SFR=(500-1,500)$M_{odot}$yr$^{-1}$. By comparing with results in the literature considering only Herschel photometry, we conclude that our 13 candidate protoclusters can be categorised into four groups: six of them being high-redshift starbursting protoclusters, one being a lower-redshift cluster/protocluster, three being protoclusters that contain lensed DSFG(s) or are rich in 850-$mu$m sources, and three regions without significant Herschel or SCUBA-2 source overdensities. The total SFRs of the candidate protoclusters are found to be comparable or higher than those of known protoclusters, suggesting our sample contains some of the most extreme protocluster population. We infer that cross-matching Planck and Herschel data is a robust method for selecting candidate protoclusters with overdensities of 850-$mu$m sources.
Dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) detected at $z > 4$ provide important examples of the first generations of massive galaxies. However, few examples with spectroscopic confirmation are currently known, with Hershel struggling to detect significant numbers of $z > 6$ DSFGs. NGP6_D1 is a bright 850 $mu m$ source (12.3 $pm$ 2.5 mJy) with no counterparts at shorter wavelengths (a SPIRE dropout). Interferometric observations confirm it is a single source, with no evidence for any optical or NIR emission, or nearby likely foreground lensing sources. No $>3sigma$ detected lines are seen in both LMT RSR and IRAM 30m EMIR spectra of NGP6_D1 across 32 $GHz$ of bandwidth despite reaching detection limits of $sim 1 mJy/500 km~s^{-1}$, so the redshift remains unknown. Template fitting suggests that NGP6_D1 is most likely between $z = 5.8$ and 8.3. SED analysis finds that NGP6_D1 is a ULIRG, with a dust mass $sim 10^8$ - $10^9$ $M_{odot}$ and a SFR of $sim$ 500 $M_{odot}~yr^{-1}$. We place upper limits on the gas mass of NGP6_D1 of $M_{H2}$ $ < (1.1~pm~3.5) times 10^{11}$ $M_{odot}$, consistent with a gas-to-dust ratio of $sim$ 100 - 1000. We discuss the nature of NGP6_D1 in the context of the broader submm population, and find that comparable SPIRE dropouts account for $sim$ 20% of all SCUBA-2 detected sources, but with a similar flux density distribution to the general population.
We present the Herschel Bright Sources (HerBS) sample, a sample of bright, high-redshift Herschel sources detected in the 616.4 square degree H-ATLAS survey. The HerBS sample contains 209 galaxies, selected with a 500 {mu}m flux density greater than 80 mJy and an estimated redshift greater than 2. The sample consists of a combination of HyLIRGs and lensed ULIRGs during the epoch of peak cosmic star formation. In this paper, we present SCUBA-2 observations at 850 ${mu}$m of 189 galaxies of the HerBS sample, 152 of these sources were detected. We fit a spectral template to the Herschel-SPIRE and 850 ${mu}$m SCUBA-2 flux densities of 22 sources with spectroscopically determined redshifts, using a two-component modified blackbody spectrum as a template. We find a cold- and hot-dust temperature of 21.29 K and 45.80 K, a cold-to-hot dust mass ratio of 26.62 and a $beta$ of 1.83. The poor quality of the fit suggests that the sample of galaxies is too diverse to be explained by our simple model. Comparison of our sample to a galaxy evolution model indicates that the fraction of lenses is high. Out of the 152 SCUBA-2 detected galaxies, the model predicts 128.4 $pm$ 2.1 of those galaxies to be lensed (84.5%). The SPIRE 500 ${mu}$m flux suggests that out of all 209 HerBS sources, we expect 158.1 $pm$ 1.7 lensed sources, giving a total lensing fraction of 76 per cent.
We have used the Submillimeter Array at 860$,mu$m to observe the brightest SCUBA-2 sources in 4$,$deg$^{2}$ of the Cosmology Legacy Survey. We have targeted 75 of the brightest single-dish SCUBA-2 850$,mu$m sources down to $S_{850},{approx},8,$mJy, achieving an average synthesized beam of 2.4$^{primeprime}$ and an average rms of $sigma_{860},{=},1.5,$mJy in our primary beam-corrected maps. We searched our maps for $4sigma$ peaks, corresponding to $S_{860},{gtrsim},6,$mJy sources, and detected 59 single galaxies and three pairs of galaxies. We include in our study 28 archival observations, bringing our sample size to 103 bright single-dish submillimetre sources with interferometric follow-up. We compute the cumulative and differential number counts of our sample, finding them to overlap with previous single-dish survey number counts within the uncertainties, although our cumulative number count is systematically lower than the parent SCUBA-2 cumulative number count by $24,{pm},6$ per cent between 11 and 15$,$mJy. We estimate the probability that a ${gtrsim},10,$mJy single-dish submillimetre source resolves into two or more galaxies with similar flux densities, causing a significant change in the number counts, to be about 15 per cent. Assuming the remaining 85 per cent of the targets are ultra-luminous starburst galaxies between $z,{=},2$-3, we find a likely volume density of ${gtrsim},400,$M$_{odot},$yr$^{-1}$ sources to be ${sim},3^{+0.7}_{-0.6},{times},10^{-7},$Mpc$^{-3}$. We show that the descendants of these galaxies could be ${gtrsim},4,{times},10^{11},$M$_{odot}$ local quiescent galaxies, and that about 10 per cent of their total stellar mass would have formed during these short bursts of star-formation.
We present SCUBA-2 follow-up of 61 candidate high-redshift Planck sources. Of these, 10 are confirmed strong gravitational lenses and comprise some of the brightest such submm sources on the observed sky, while 51 are candidate proto-cluster fields undergoing massive starburst events. With the accompanying Herschel-SPIRE observations and assuming an empirical dust temperature prior of $34^{+13}_{-9}$ K, we provide photometric redshift and far-IR luminosity estimates for 172 SCUBA-2-selected sources within these Planck overdensity fields. The redshift distribution of the sources peak between a redshift of 2 and 4, with one third of the sources having $S_{500}$/$S_{350} > 1$. For the majority of the sources, we find far-IR luminosities of approximately $10^{13},mathrm{L}_odot$, corresponding to star-formation rates of around $1000$ M$_odot mathrm{yr}^{-1}$. For $S_{850}>8$ mJy sources, we show that there is up to an order of magnitude increase in star-formation rate density and an increase in uncorrected number counts of $6$ for $S_{850}>8$ mJy when compared to typical cosmological survey fields. The sources detected with SCUBA-2 account for only approximately $5$ per cent of the Planck flux at 353 GHz, and thus many more fainter sources are expected in these fields.