Compact starbursts in z~3-6 submillimeter galaxies revealed by ALMA

Abstract

We report the source size distribution, as measured by ALMA millimetric continuum imaging, of a sample of 13 AzTEC-selected submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) at z_photo ~ 3-6. Their infrared luminosities and star-formation rates (SFR) are L_IR ~ 2-6 x 10^12 L_sun and ~ 200-600 M_sun yr-1, respectively. The size of z ~ 3-6 SMGs ranges from 0".10 to 0".38 with a median of 0".20+0".03-0".05 (FWHM), corresponding to a median circularized effective radius (Rc,e) of 0.67+0.13-0.14 kpc, comparable to the typical size of the stellar component measured in compact quiescent galaxies at z ~ 2 (cQGs) --- R ~ 1 kpc. The median surface SFR density of our z ~ 3-6 SMGs is 100+42-26 M_sun yr-1 kpc-2, comparable to that seen in local merger-driven (U)LIRGsrather than in extended disk galaxies at low and high redshifts. The discovery of compact starbursts in z >~ 3 SMGs strongly supports a massive galaxy formation scenario wherein z ~ 3-6 SMGs evolve into the compact stellar components of z ~ 2 cQGs. These cQGs are then thought to evolve into the most massive ellipticals in the local Universe, mostly via dry mergers. Our results thus suggest that z >~ 3 SMGs are the likely progenitors of massive local ellipticals, via cQGs, meaning that we can now trace the evolutionary path of the most massive galaxies over a period encompassing ~ 90% of the age of the Universe.

12 pages, 10 figures, accepted to the Astrophysical Journal part1

References in corpus (15)

• Formation of Massive Galaxies at High Redshift: Cold Streams, Clumpy Disks and Compact Spheroids
• A Dust-Obscured Massive Maximum-Starburst Galaxy at a Redshift of 6.34
• Sub-millimeter galaxies as progenitors of compact quiescent galaxies
• The SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey: ALMA resolves the rest-frame far-infrared emission of sub-millimeter galaxies
• CANDELS+3D-HST: compact SFGs at z~2-3, the progenitors of the first quiescent galaxies
• Luminous Infrared Galaxies with the Submillimeter Array: I. Survey Overview and the Central Gas to Dust Ratio
• SMA Imaging of CO(3-2) Line and 860 micron Continuum of Arp 220 : Tracing the Spatial Distribution of Luminosity
• The Physical Scale of the Far-Infrared Emission in the Most Luminous Submillimeter Galaxies
• High-resolution radio observations of submillimetre galaxies
• Simulated observations of sub-millimetre galaxies: the impact of single-dish resolution and field variance
• A Massive Galaxy in its Core Formation Phase Three Billion Years After the Big Bang
• Keck-I MOSFIRE spectroscopy of compact star-forming galaxies at z$\gtrsim$2: High velocity dispersions in progenitors of compact quiescent galaxies
• Interferometric 890 micron Images of High Redshift Submillimeter Galaxies
• Extreme dust disks in Arp 220 as revealed by ALMA
• Stacking of large interferometric data sets in the image- and uv-domain -- a comparative study

Cited by in corpus (146)

• Kiloparsec-scale dust disks in high-redshift luminous submillimeter galaxies
• An ALMA survey of the SCUBA-2 CLS UDS field: Physical properties of 707 Sub-millimetre Galaxies
• A universal structural and star-forming relation since $z\sim 3$: connecting compact star-forming and quiescent galaxies
• A massive, quiescent galaxy at redshift of z=3.717
• ALMA Imaging and Gravitational Lens Models of South Pole Telescope-Selected Dusty, Star-Forming Galaxies at High Redshifts
• High-redshift star formation in the ALMA era
• The evolution of CNO isotopes: a new window on cosmic star-formation history and the stellar IMF in the age of ALMA
• Sub-kpc ALMA imaging of compact star-forming galaxies at z~2.5: revealing the formation of dense galactic cores in the progenitors of compact quiescent galaxies
• ALMA reveals potential evidence for spiral arms, bars, and rings in high-redshift submillimeter galaxies
• The ALPINE-ALMA [CII] Survey: Size of Individual Star-Forming Galaxies at z=4-6 and their Extended Halo Structure
• The redshift distribution of dusty star forming galaxies from the SPT survey
• The Herschel-ATLAS: a sample of 500μm-selected lensed galaxies over 600 square degrees
• First Identification of 10-kpc Scale [CII] 158um Halos around Star-Forming Galaxies at z=5-7
• VLA and ALMA Imaging of Intense, Galaxy-Wide Star Formation in z ~ 2 Galaxies
• An ALMA survey of submillimetre galaxies in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South: Spectroscopic redshifts
• The SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey: Multi-wavelength Properties of ALMA-identified Submillimeter Galaxies in UKIDSS-UDS
• Resolving the ISM at the peak of cosmic star formation with ALMA - The distribution of CO and dust continuum in z~2.5 sub-millimetre galaxies
• Bulge-forming galaxies with an extended rotating disk at z~2
• An ALMA survey of the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey UKIDSS/UDS field: Source catalogue and properties
• The Complete Redshift Distribution of Dusty Star-forming Galaxies from the SPT-SZ Survey
• The space density of luminous dusty star-forming galaxies at $z>4$: SCUBA-2 and LABOCA imaging of ultrared galaxies from $Herschel$-ATLAS
• An ALMA survey of the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey UKIDSS/UDS field: High-resolution dust continuum morphologies and the link between sub-millimetre galaxies and spheroid formation
• Demonstrating A New Census of INfrared Galaxies with ALMA (DANCING-ALMA). I. FIR Size and Luminosity Relation at z = 0-6 Revealed with 1034 ALMA Sources
• ALMACAL I: First dual-band number counts from a deep and wide ALMA submm survey, free from cosmic variance
• Alma Twenty-six Arcmin^2 Survey Of Goods-s At One-millimeter (asagao): Source Catalog And Number Counts
• An ALMA/NOEMA survey of the molecular gas properties of high-redshift star-forming galaxies
• A gravitationally unstable gas disk of a starburst galaxy 12 billion years ago
• Witnessing the birth of the red sequence: ALMA high-resolution imaging of [CII] and dust in two interacting ultra-red starbursts at z = 4.425
• Discovery of four apparently cold dusty galaxies at z=3.62-5.85 in the COSMOS field: direct evidence of CMB impact on high-redshift galaxy observables
• A spatially resolved study of cold dust, molecular gas, HII regions, and stars in the $z=2.12$ submillimeter galaxy ALESS67.1
• The dust and [CII] morphologies of redshift ~4.5 sub-millimeter galaxies at ~200pc resolution: The absence of large clumps in the interstellar medium of high-redshift galaxies
• ALMA Deep Field in SSA22: Source Catalog and Number Counts
• An ALMA survey of the brightest sub-millimetre sources in the SCUBA-2 COSMOS field
• Predictions for the spatial distribution of the dust continuum emission in 1<z<5 star-forming galaxies
• GOODS-ALMA 2.0: Source catalog, number counts, and prevailing compact sizes in 1.1 mm galaxies
• CANDELS: Elevated Black Hole Growth in the Progenitors of Compact Quiescent Galaxies at z~2
• Candidate Gravitationally Lensed Dusty Star-forming Galaxies in the Herschel Wide Area Surveys
• Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs). XIII. Large-scale Feedback and Star Formation in a Low-Luminosity Quasar at z = 7.07 on the Local Black Hole to Host Mass Relation
• Starburst to quiescent from HST/ALMA: Stars and dust unveil minor mergers in submillimeter galaxies at $z\sim 4.5$
• Structural evolution in massive galaxies at z~2
• Molecular gas reservoirs in cluster galaxies at z=1.46
• The far-infrared emitting region in local galaxies and QSOs: Size and scaling relations
• ALMA 200-parsec Resolution Imaging of Smooth Cold Dusty Disks in Typical $z\sim 3$ Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Dramatic Size and Kinematic Evolution of Massive Early-Type Galaxies
• Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs) III. Star formation properties of the host galaxies at $z\gtrsim 6$ studied with ALMA
• An ALMA survey of submillimetre galaxies in the COSMOS field: Physical properties derived from energy balance spectral energy distribution modelling
• Spatially Resolved Interstellar Medium and Highly-Excited Dense Molecular Gas in the Most Luminous Quasar at z=6.327
• An ALMA survey of the S2CLS UDS field: Optically invisible submillimetre galaxies
• The SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey: Multi-wavelengths counterparts to 10${}^3$ submillimeter galaxies in the UKIDSS-UDS field
• The dust-continuum size of TNG50 galaxies at $z=1-5$: a comparison with the distribution of stellar light, stars, dust and H${}_2$
• The GOODS-N Jansky VLA 10 GHz Pilot Survey: Sizes of Star-Forming $\mu$Jy Radio Sources
• Planck's dusty GEMS. VI. Multi-J CO excitation and interstellar medium conditions in dusty starburst galaxies at z=2-4
• Revealing the Stellar Mass and Dust Distributions of Submillimeter Galaxies at Redshift 2
• Physical properties and evolution of (Sub-)millimeter selected galaxies in the galaxy formation simulation Shark
• Knocking on giants' doors: I. The evolution of the dust-to-stellar mass ratio in distant dusty galaxies
• ALMA 26 Arcmin${}^2$ Survey of GOODS-S at One-millimeter (ASAGAO): Average Morphology of High-$z$ Dusty Star-Forming Galaxies is an Exponential-Disk ($n\simeq 1$)
• How primordial magnetic fields shrink galaxies
• The interstellar medium in high-redshift submillimeter galaxies as probed by infrared spectroscopy
• The Main Sequences of Starforming Galaxies and Active Galactic Nuclei at High Redshift
• KASHz: No evidence for ionised outflows instantaneously suppressing star formation in moderate luminosity AGN at $z$$\sim$$1.4$-$2.6$
• Testing Star Formation Laws in a Starburst Galaxy At Redshift 3 Resolved with ALMA
• GOODS-ALMA: 1.1 mm galaxy survey - I. Source catalogue and optically dark galaxies
• Dust and gas content of high-redshift galaxies hosting obscured AGN in the CDF-S
• The SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey: The EGS deep field - II. Morphological transformation and multi-wavelength properties of faint submillimetre galaxies
• Millimeter mapping at z~1: dust-obscured bulge building and disk growth
• Very compact millimeter sizes for composite star-forming/AGN submillimeter galaxies
• Clumpy and Extended Starbursts in the Brightest Unlensed Submillimeter Galaxies
• An ALMA Spectroscopic Survey of the Brightest Submillimeter Galaxies in the SCUBA-2-COSMOS field (AS2COSPEC): Survey Description and First Results
• SXDF-ALMA 1.5 arcmin^2 deep survey. A compact dusty star-forming galaxy at z=2.5
• New Analytic Solutions for Galaxy Evolution: Gas, Stars, Metals and Dust in local Early-Type Galaxies and in their high-z Starforming Progenitors
• Sub-millimetre compactness as a critical dimension to understand the Main Sequence of star-forming galaxies
• GOODS-ALMA 2.0: Starbursts in the main sequence reveal compact star formation regulating galaxy evolution prequenching
• Planck's dusty GEMS. IV. Star formation and feedback in a maximum starburst at z=3 seen at 60-pc resolution
• The rocky road to quiescence: compaction and quenching of quasar host galaxies at z~2
• The Structure of Massive Star-Forming Galaxies from JWST and ALMA: Dusty, High Redshift Disk Galaxies
• SPT0346-52: Negligible AGN Activity in a Compact, Hyper-starburst Galaxy at z = 5.7
• CNO emission of an unlensed submillimeter galaxy at z=4.3
• An ALMA survey of the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey UKIDSS/UDS field: Identifying candidate z~4.5 [CII] emitters
• ALMA Lensing Cluster Survey: ALMA-Herschel Joint Study of Lensed Dusty Star-Forming Galaxies across $z\simeq 0.5-6$
• ALMA Deep Field in SSA22: Survey Design and Source Catalog of a 20 arcmin^2 Survey at 1.1mm
• Giant star-forming clumps?
• On the redshift distribution and physical properties of ACT-selected DSFGs
• The rest-frame optical sizes of massive galaxies with suppressed star formation at $z\sim 4$
• An ALMA survey of CO in submillimetre galaxies: companions, triggering, and the environment in blended sources
• ALMACAL II: Extreme star-formation-rate densities in a pair of dusty starbursts at $z=3.442$ revealed by ALMA 20-milliarcsec resolution imaging
• The Bright Extragalactic ALMA Redshift Survey (BEARS) I: redshifts of bright gravitationally-lensed galaxies from the Herschel ATLAS
• ALMA observations of the multiplanet system 61 Vir: What lies outside super-Earth systems?
• An ALMA survey of submillimetre galaxies in the COSMOS field: The extent of the radio-emitting region revealed by 3 GHz imaging with the Very Large Array
• Testing Star Formation Laws on Spatially Resolved Regions in a $z\approx 4.3$ Starburst Galaxy
• The ALMA-CRISTAL survey: Widespread dust-obscured star formation in typical star-forming galaxies at z=4-6
• The interstellar medium distribution, gas kinematics, and system dynamics of the far-infrared luminous quasar SDSS J2310+1855 at $z=6.0$
• SUPER V. ALMA continuum observations of z~2 AGN and the elusive evidence of outflows influencing star formation
• The clumpy structure of $\epsilon$ Eridani's debris disc revisited by ALMA
• Uncovering the stellar structure of the dusty star-forming galaxy GN20 at z=4.055 with MIRI/JWST
• The impact of ionised outflows from z$\sim$2.5 quasars is not through instantaneous in-situ quenching: the evidence from ALMA and VLT/SINFONI
• Bright Extragalactic ALMA Redshift Survey (BEARS) III: Detailed study of emission lines from 71 Herschel targets
• VLA Legacy Survey of Molecular Gas in Massive Star-forming Galaxies at High Redshift
• A non-corotating gas component in an extreme starburst at z=4.3
• Submillimetre galaxies in two massive protoclusters at z = 2.24: witnessing the enrichment of extreme starbursts in the outskirts of HAE density peaks
• From starburst to quiescence: post-starburst galaxies and their large-scale clustering over cosmic time
• CEERS: MIRI deciphers the spatial distribution of dust-obscured star formation in galaxies at $0.1<z<2.5$
• Growth of Supermassive Black Hole Seeds in ETG Star-Forming Progenitors: Multiple Merging of Stellar Compact Remnants via Gaseous Dynamical Friction and Gravitational Wave Emission
• The Herschel-ATLAS: magnifications and physical sizes of $500\mu$m-selected strongly lensed galaxies
• The clustering of submillimeter galaxies detected with ALMA
• The redshift and star formation mode of AzTEC2: a pair of massive galaxies at $z=4.63$
• Stellar Mass Function of Active and Quiescent Galaxies via the Continuity Equation
• ALMA resolves extended star formation in high-z AGN host galaxies
• Unveiling the nature of 11 dusty star-forming galaxies at the peak of cosmic star formation history
• ALMA reveals Strong [CII] emission in a galaxy embedded in a giant Lyman-alpha blob at z=3.1
• (Sub)millimetre interferometric imaging of a sample of COSMOS/AzTEC submillimetre galaxies - II. The spatial extent of the radio-emitting regions
• Estimating sizes of faint, distant galaxies in the submillimetre regime
• Hyperluminous starburst gives up its secrets
• Evidence of extended cold molecular gas and dust halos around $\mathbf{z}\sim 2.3$ Extremely Red Quasars with ALMA
• ALMACAL IX: multi-band ALMA survey for dusty star-forming galaxies and the resolved fractions of the cosmic infrared background
• ALMA 1.3 mm Survey of Lensed Submillimeter Galaxies (SMGs) Selected by Herschel: Discovery of Spatially Extended SMGs and Implications
• A kpc-scale resolved study of unobscured and obscured star-formation activity in normal galaxies at z = 1.5 and 2.2 from ALMA and HiZELS
• An ALMA view of 11 Dusty Star Forming Galaxies at the peak of Cosmic Star Formation History
• Extremely Red Submillimeter Galaxies: New z>~4-6 Candidates Discovered using ALMA and Jansky VLA
• The Black Hole Mass Function Across Cosmic Times II. Heavy Seeds and (Super)Massive Black Holes
• Molecular Outflows in z > 6 QSO Hosts Driven by Star Formation
• Molecular gas in AzTEC/C159: a star-forming disk galaxy 1.3Gyr after the Big Bang
• LineStacker: A spectral line stacking tool for interferometric data
• Spitzer catalog of Herschel-selected ultrared dusty, star-forming galaxies
• A Submillimeter Perspective on the GOODS Fields (SUPER GOODS) - II. The High Radio Power Population in the GOODS-N
• Detection of nitrogen and oxygen in a galaxy at the end of reionization
• Bimodal morphologies of massive galaxies at the core of a protocluster at z=3.09 and the strong size growth of a brightest cluster galaxy
• ALMA resolves the first strongly-lensed Optical/NIR-dark galaxy
• SXDF-ALMA 2-arcmin^2 Deep Survey: Stacking of Rest-Frame Near-Infrared Selected Objects
• Unveiling Sizes of Compact AGN Hosts with ALMA
• NOEMA confirmation of an optically dark ALMA-AzTEC submillimetre galaxy at $z=5.24$. A late-stage starburst prior to quenching
• On the Limited Sizes of Dusty Starbursting Regions at High Redshifts
• SCUBA-2 Ultra Deep Imaging EAO Survey (STUDIES) II: Structural Properties and Near-Infrared Morphologies of Faint Submillimeter Galaxies
• The SCUBA-2 Large eXtragalactic Survey: 850um map, catalogue and the bright-end number counts of the XMM-LSS field
• The Circumgalactic Medium of Submillimeter Galaxies. II. Unobscured QSOs within Dusty Starbursts and QSO Sightlines with Impact Parameters below 100 Kiloparsec
• Growth of Massive Black Hole Seeds by Migration of Stellar and Primordial Black Holes: Gravitational Waves and Stochastic Background
• Multi-band Optical and Near-infrared Properties of Faint Submillimeter Galaxies with Serendipitous ALMA Detections
• Low-frequency radio spectra of submillimetre galaxies in the Lockman Hole
• A Systematic Search for Reddest Far-infrared and Sub-millimeter Galaxies: revealing dust-embedded starbursts at high redshifts
• A luminous molecular gas pair beyond redshift 7
• Resolving a merger in a hyper-luminous submillimeter galaxy at z=2.82
• JWST reveals extended stellar disks for ALMA-bright dusty star-forming galaxies in the Spiderweb protocluster
• Characterizing elusive, faint dusty star-forming galaxies: a lensed, optically undetected ALMA galaxy at z~3.3
• The Role of Radio Observations in Studies of Infrared-Bright Galaxies: Prospects for a next-generation Very Large Array
• SXDF-UDS-CANDELS-ALMA 1.5 arcmin${}^2$ deep survey
• Extended H$\alpha$ over compact far-infrared continuum in dusty submillimeter galaxies -- Insights into dust distributions and star-formation rates at $z\sim 2$
• Compact star forming galaxies as the progenitors of compact quiescent galaxies: clustering result