Continuum Observations at 350 Microns of High-Redshift Molecular Emission Line Galaxies

Abstract

We report observations of 15 high redshift (z = 1-5) galaxies at 350 microns using the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory and SHARC-II array detector. Emission was detected from eight galaxies, for which far-infrared luminosities, star formation rates, total dust masses, and minimum source size estimates are derived. These galaxies have star formation rates and star formation efficiencies comparable to other high redshift molecular emission line galaxies. The results are used to test the idea that star formation in these galaxies occurs in a large number of basic units, the units being similar to star-forming clumps in the Milky Way. The luminosity of these extreme galaxies can be reproduced in a simple model with (0.9-30) *10^6 dense clumps, each with a luminosity of 5 *10^5 Lsun, the mean value for such clumps in the Milky Way. Radiative transfer models of such clumps can provide reasonable matches to the overall SEDs of the galaxies. They indicate that the individual clumps are quite opaque in the far-infrared. Luminosity to mass ratios vary over two orders of magnitude, correlating strongly with the dust temperature derived from simple fits to the SED. The gas masses derived from the dust modeling are in remarkable agreement with those from CO luminosities, suggesting that the assumptions going into both calculations are reasonable.

17 pages, 8 figures. Accepted by ApJ

References in corpus (7)

• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Implications for Cosmology
• 350 Micron Dust Emission from High Redshift Quasars
• SHARC-2 350 Micron Observations of Distant Submillimeter Selected Galaxies
• Highly-excited CO emission in APM08279+5255 at z=3.9
• Thermal Emission from Warm Dust in the Most Distant Quasars
• Molecular gas in QSO host galaxies at z>5
• SHARC-II 350 micron Observations of Thermal Emission from Warm Dust in z>=5 Quasars

Cited by in corpus (19)

• Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies
• Dusty Star-Forming Galaxies at High Redshift
• The Properties of Massive, Dense, Clumps: Mapping Surveys of HCN and CS
• CO(1-0) in z>2 Quasar Host Galaxies: No Evidence for Extended Molecular Gas Reservoirs
• Submillimeter Follow-up of WISE-Selected Hyperluminous Galaxies
• Dust grain growth in the interstellar medium of 5<z<6.5 quasars
• Dust, CO and [CI]: Cross-calibration of molecular gas mass tracers in metal-rich galaxies across cosmic time
• Are z~5 QSOs found in the most massive high redshift over-densities?
• Gravitational lensing reveals extreme dust-obscured star formation in quasar host galaxies
• VLA Mapping of the CO(1-0) Line in SMM J14011+0252
• On the Variations of Fundamental Constants and AGN feedback in the QSO host galaxy RXJ0911.4+0551 at z=2.79
• Star formation and black hole growth at z=4.8
• Extreme star formation in the host galaxies of the fastest growing super-massive black holes at z=4.8
• Submillimeter sources behind the massive lensing clusters A370 and A2390
• Stacked Average Far-Infrared Spectrum of Dusty Star-Forming Galaxies from the Herschel/SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer
• Resolving the molecular gas around the lensed quasar RXJ0911.4+0551
• High-resolution imaging with the International LOFAR Telescope: Observations of the gravitational lenses MG 0751+2716 and CLASS B1600+434
• On the relationship between metallicity distributions of globular clusters and of circumgalactic gas
• Tight correlation of star formation with [Ci] and CO lines across cosmic time