Detection of [O III] at z~3: A Galaxy above the Main Sequence, Rapidly Assembling its Stellar Mass

Abstract

We detect bright emission in the far infrared fine structure [O III] 88$\mu$m line from a strong lensing candidate galaxy, H-ATLAS J113526.3-014605, hereafter G12v2.43, at z=3.127, using the $2^{\mathrm{nd}}$ generation Redshift (z) and Early Universe Spectrometer (ZEUS-2) at the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment Telescope (APEX). This is only the fifth detection of this far-IR line from a sub-millimeter galaxy at the epoch of galaxy assembly. The observed [O III] luminosity of $7.1\times 10^9(\frac{10}{\mu }){\mathrm{L}}_{\odot }$ likely arises from HII regions around massive stars, and the amount of Lyman continuum photons required to support the ionization indicate the presence of $(1.2-5.2)\times 10^6(\frac{10}{\mu })$ equivalent O5.5 or higher stars; where $\mu$ would be the lensing magnification factor. The observed line luminosity also requires a minimum mass of $\sim 2\times 10^8(\frac{10}{\mu }){\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ in ionized gas, that is $0.33\%$ of the estimated total molecular gas mass of $6\times 10^{10}(\frac{10}{\mu }){\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$. We compile multi-band photometry tracing rest-frame UV to millimeter continuum emission to further constrain the properties of this dusty high redshift star-forming galaxy. Via SED modeling we find G12v2.43 is forming stars at a rate of 916 $(\frac{10}{\mu }){\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }\mathrm{y}{\mathrm{r}}^{-1}$ and already has a stellar mass of $8\times 10^{10}(\frac{10}{\mu }){\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$. We also constrain the age of the current starburst to be $⩽$ 5 million years, making G12v2.43 a gas rich galaxy lying above the star-forming main sequence at z$\sim$3, undergoing a growth spurt and, could be on the main sequence within the derived gas depletion timescale of $\sim$66 million years.

11 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (23)

• Cosmic Star Formation History
• Infrared Emission from Interstellar Dust. IV. The Silicate-Graphite-PAH Model in the Post-Spitzer Era
• A Highly Consistent Framework for the Evolution of the Star-Forming "Main Sequence" from z~0-6
• A simple model to interpret the ultraviolet, optical and infrared emission from galaxies
• PHIBSS: Unified Scaling Relations of Gas Depletion Time and Molecular Gas Fractions
• Combined CO & Dust Scaling Relations of Depletion Time and Molecular Gas Fractions with Cosmic Time, Specific Star Formation Rate and Stellar Mass
• An ALMA survey of Sub-millimeter Galaxies in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South: Physical properties derived from ultraviolet-to-radio modelling
• Dust in the reionization era: ALMA observations of a $z$=8.38 Galaxy
• Kiloparsec-scale dust disks in high-redshift luminous submillimeter galaxies
• A Herschel/PACS Far Infrared Line Emission Survey of Local Luminous Infrared Galaxies
• Galaxy growth in a massive halo in the first billion years of cosmic history
• A Compendium of Far-Infrared Line and Continuum Emission for 227 Galaxies Observed by the Infrared Space Observatory
• The Herschel Dwarf Galaxy Survey: I. Properties of the low-metallicity ISM from PACS spectroscopy
• The nature of the [CII] emission in dusty star-forming galaxies from the SPT survey
• Extended ionised and clumpy gas in a normal galaxy at z=7.1 revealed by ALMA
• Physical conditions of the interstellar medium of high-redshift, strongly lensed submillimetre galaxies from the Herschel-ATLAS
• Strong C+ emission in galaxies at z~1-2: Evidence for cold flow accretion powered star formation in the early Universe
• First Detection of the [OIII] 88 micron Line at High Redshifts: Characterizing the Starburst and Narrow Line Regions in Extreme Luminosity Systems
• Submillimeter H2O and H2O+ emission in lensed ultra- and hyper-luminous infrared galaxies at z ~ 2-4
• Lens Models of Herschel-Selected Galaxies From High-Resolution Near-IR Observations
• The interstellar medium in high-redshift submillimeter galaxies as probed by infrared spectroscopy
• On the far-infrared metallicity diagnostics: applications to high-redshift galaxies
• Constraining the ISM properties of the Cloverleaf quasar host galaxy with Herschel spectroscopy

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Detection of the Far-infrared [O III] and Dust Emission in a Galaxy at Redshift 8.312: Early Metal Enrichment in the Heart of the Reionization Era
• Starbursting [O III] emitters and quiescent [C II] emitters in the reionization era
• No evidence for enhanced [OIII] 88um emission in a z~6 quasar compared to its companion starbursting galaxy
• A dense, solar metallicity ISM in the z=4.2 dusty star-forming galaxy SPT0418-47
• CNO emission of an unlensed submillimeter galaxy at z=4.3
• The "Red Radio Ring": Ionised and Molecular Gas in a Starburst/Active Galactic Nucleus at $z\sim 2.55$
• ALMA resolves the first strongly-lensed Optical/NIR-dark galaxy
• Diagnosing the interstellar medium of galaxies with far-infrared emission lines II. [C II], [O I], [O III], [N II] and [N III] up to z=6
• The Way of Water: ALMA resolves H2O emission lines in a strongly lensed dusty star-forming galaxy at z $\sim$ 3.1
• The [NII] 205 $\mu$m line emission from high-z SMGs and QSOs
• Galaxy evolution through infrared and submillimeter spectroscopy: Measuring star formation and black hole accretion with JWST and ALMA