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Hodge JA, da Cunha E. High-redshift star formation in the Atacama large millimetre/submillimetre array era. R Soc Open Sci 2020; 7:200556. [PMID: 33489252 PMCID: PMC7813222 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.200556] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2020] [Accepted: 11/02/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
The Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) is currently in the process of transforming our view of star-forming galaxies in the distant ( z ≳ 1 ) universe. Before ALMA, most of what we knew about dust-obscured star formation in distant galaxies was limited to the brightest submillimetre sources-the so-called submillimetre galaxies (SMGs)-and even the information on those sources was sparse, with resolved (i.e. sub-galactic) observations of the obscured star formation and gas reservoirs typically restricted to the most extreme and/or strongly lensed sources. Starting with the beginning of early science operations in 2011, the last 9 years of ALMA observations have ushered in a new era for studies of high-redshift star formation. With its long baselines, ALMA has allowed observations of distant dust-obscured star formation with angular resolutions comparable to-or even far surpassing-the best current optical telescopes. With its bandwidth and frequency coverage, it has provided an unprecedented look at the associated molecular and atomic gas in these distant galaxies through targeted follow-up and serendipitous detections/blind line scans. Finally, with its leap in sensitivity compared to previous (sub-)millimetre arrays, it has enabled the detection of these powerful dust/gas tracers much further down the luminosity function through both statistical studies of colour/mass-selected galaxy populations and dedicated deep fields. We review the main advances ALMA has helped bring about in our understanding of the dust and gas properties of high-redshift ( z ≳ 1 ) star-forming galaxies during these first 9 years of its science operations, and we highlight the interesting questions that may be answered by ALMA in the years to come.
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Affiliation(s)
- J. A. Hodge
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
| | - E. da Cunha
- International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia
- Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2611, Australia
- ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D)
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Su T, Marriage T, Asboth V, Baker A, Bond J, Crichton D, Devlin M, Dünner R, Farrah D, Frayer D, Gralla M, Hall K, Halpern M, Harris A, Hilton M, Hincks A, Hughes J, Niemack M, Page L, Partridge B, Rivera J, Scott D, Sievers J, Thornton R, Viero M, Wang L, Wollack E, Zemcov M. On the redshift distribution and physical properties of ACT-selected DSFGs. Mon Not R Astron Soc 2017; 464:968-984. [PMID: 32753768 PMCID: PMC7402280 DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw2334] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
We present multi-wavelength detections of nine candidate gravitationally-lensed dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) selected at 218GHz (1.4mm) from the ACT equatorial survey. Among the brightest ACT sources, these represent the subset of the total ACT sample lying in Herschel SPIRE fields, and all nine of the 218GHz detections were found to have bright Herschel counterparts. By fitting their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) with a modified blackbody model with power-law temperature distribution, we find the sample has a median redshift of z = 4.1 - 1.0 + 1.1 (68 per cent confidence interval), as expected for 218GHz selection, and an apparent total infrared luminosity of log 10 ( μ L IR / L ⊙ ) = 13.86 - 0.30 + 0.33 , which suggests that they are either strongly lensed sources or unresolved collections of unlensed DSFGs. The effective apparent diameter of the sample is μ d = 4.2 - 1.0 + 1.7 kpc , further evidence of strong lensing or multiplicity, since the typical diameter of dusty star-forming galaxies is 1.0-2.5 kpc. We emphasize that the effective apparent diameter derives from SED modelling without the assumption of optically thin dust (as opposed to image morphology). We find that the sources have substantial optical depth. ( τ = 4.2 - 1.9 + 3.7 ) to dust around the peak in the modified blackbody spectrum (λ obs ⩽ 500μm), a result that is robust to model choice.
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Affiliation(s)
- T. Su
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218-2686, USA
| | - T.A. Marriage
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218-2686, USA
| | - V. Asboth
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Rd., Vancouver BC V6T 1Z1, Canada
| | - A.J. Baker
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 136 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8019, USA
| | - J.R. Bond
- Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3H8, Canada
| | - D. Crichton
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218-2686, USA
| | - M.J. Devlin
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, 209 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA
| | - R. Dünner
- Departamento de Astronomía y Astrofísica, Pontificía Universidad Católica, Casilla 306, Santiago 22, Chile
| | - D. Farrah
- Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
| | - D.T. Frayer
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory, P.O. Box 2, Green Bank, WV 24944, USA
| | - M.B. Gralla
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218-2686, USA
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Department of Astronomy/Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065, USA
| | - K. Hall
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218-2686, USA
| | - M. Halpern
- Department of Astronomy/Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065, USA
| | - A.I. Harris
- Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-2421, USA
| | - M. Hilton
- Astrophysics and Cosmology Research Unit, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041, South Africa
| | - A.D. Hincks
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Rd., Vancouver BC V6T 1Z1, Canada
- Department of Physics, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, I-00185 Rome, Italy
| | - J.P. Hughes
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 136 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8019, USA
| | - M.D. Niemack
- Department of Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
| | - L.A. Page
- Joseph Henry Laboratories of Physics, Jadwin Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - B. Partridge
- Department of Astronomy, Haverford College, Haverford, PA 19041, USA
| | - J. Rivera
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 136 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8019, USA
| | - D. Scott
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Rd., Vancouver BC V6T 1Z1, Canada
| | - J.L. Sievers
- Astrophysics and Cosmology Research Unit, School of Chemistry and Physics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041, South Africa
| | - R.J. Thornton
- Department of Physics, West Chester University, 700 S High St, West Chester, PA 19382, USA
| | - M.P. Viero
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, 382 Via Pueblo Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - L. Wang
- SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Landleven 12, 9747 AD, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - E.J. Wollack
- NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA
| | - M. Zemcov
- Center for Detectors, School of Physics and Astronomy, Rochester Institute of Technology, 1 Lomb Memorial Dr., Rochester NY 14623, USA
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena CA 91109, USA
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