Noema formIng Cluster survEy (NICE): A Census of Star Formation and Cold Gas Properties in Massive protoclusters at 1.5<z<4

Abstract

Massive protoclusters at z~1.5-4, the peak of the cosmic star formation history, are key to understanding the formation mechanisms of massive galaxies in today's clusters. However, studies of protoclusters at these high redshifts remain limited, primarily due to small sample sizes and heterogeneous selection criteria. In this work, we conduct a systematic investigation of the star formation and cold gas properties of member galaxies of eight massive protoclusters in the COSMOS field, using the statistical and homogeneously selected sample from the Noema formIng Cluster survEy (NICE). Our analysis reveals a steep increase in the star formation rates per halo mass (${\Sigma }_{\mathrm{SFR}}/M_{\mathrm{halo}}$) with redshifts in these intensively star-forming protoclusters, reaching values one to two orders of magnitude higher than those observed in the field at z>2. We further show that, instead of an enhancement of starbursts, this increase is largely driven by the concentration of massive and gas-rich star-forming galaxies in the protocluster cores. The member galaxies still generally follow the same star formation main sequence as in the field, with a moderate enhancement at the low mass end. Notably, the most massive protocluster galaxies ($M_{\star }$>8$\times$10${}^{10}$M${}_{\odot }$) exhibit higher $f_{\mathrm{gas}}$ and ${\tau }_{\mathrm{gas}}$ than their field counterparts, while remaining on the star forming main sequence. These gas-rich, massive, and star-forming galaxies are predominantly concentrated in the protocluster cores and are likely progenitors of massive ellipticals in the center of today's clusters. These results suggest that the formation of massive galaxies in such environments is sustained by substantial gas reservoirs, which support persistent star formation and drive early mass assembly in forming cluster cores.

arXiv comment12 pages, 7 figures, 1 table and 1 figure in appendix. A&A in press

References in corpus (60)

• The Global Schmidt Law in Star Forming Galaxies
• Mass and environment as drivers of galaxy evolution in SDSS and zCOSMOS and the origin of the Schechter function
• Cold streams in early massive hot haloes as the main mode of galaxy formation
• UniverseMachine: The Correlation between Galaxy Growth and Dark Matter Halo Assembly from z=0-10
• Mass assembly in quiescent and star-forming galaxies since z=4 from UltraVISTA
• The Star Formation Rate and Dense Molecular Gas in Galaxies
• Detection of quiescent galaxies in a bicolor sequence from z=0-2
• The lesser role of starbursts for star formation at z=2
• The Galactic disk mass function: reconciliation of the HST and nearby determinations
• The Herschel view of the dominant mode of galaxy growth from z=4 to the present day
• Infrared luminosity functions from the Chandra Deep Field South : the Spitzer view on the history of dusty star formation at 0<z<1
• Different star formation laws for disks versus starbursts at low and high redshifts
• Combined CO & Dust Scaling Relations of Depletion Time and Molecular Gas Fractions with Cosmic Time, Specific Star Formation Rate and Stellar Mass
• The Evolving Interstellar Medium of Star Forming Galaxies Since z=2 as Probed by Their Infrared Spectral Energy Distributions
• ISM masses and the star formation law at Z = 1 to 6 // ALMA observations of dust continuum in 145 galaxies in the COSMOS survey field
• COSMOS2020: A panchromatic view of the Universe to $z\sim 10$ from two complementary catalogs
• Regularity underlying complexity: a redshift-independent description of the continuous variation of galaxy-scale molecular gas properties in the mass-star formation rate plane
• Evolution of the dust emission of massive galaxies up to z=4 and constraints on their dominant mode of star formation
• The contribution of starbursts and normal galaxies to infrared luminosity functions at z < 2
• Measuring the Redshift Evolution of Clustering: the Hubble Deep Field South
• "Super-deblended" Dust Emission in Galaxies: II. Far-IR to (sub)millimeter photometry and high redshift galaxy candidates in the full COSMOS field
• The VLA-COSMOS 3~GHz Large Project: Cosmic evolution of radio AGN and implications for radio-mode feedback since z~5
• LoCuSS: The steady decline and slow quenching of star formation in cluster galaxies over the last four billion years
• The infrared-radio correlation of star-forming galaxies is strongly M${}_{\star }$-dependent but nearly redshift-invariant since z$\sim$4
• The ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the HUDF: CO Excitation and Atomic Carbon in Star-Forming Galaxies at $z=1-3$
• A Panoramic Mid-infrared Survey of Two Distant Clusters
• The evolution of dust-obscured star formation activity in galaxy clusters relative to the field over the last 9 billion years
• An ALMA/NOEMA survey of the molecular gas properties of high-redshift star-forming galaxies
• A star-bursting proto-cluster in making associated to a radio galaxy at z=2.53 discovered by H_alpha imaging
• ALMA Observations of Gas-Rich Galaxies in z~1.6 Galaxy Clusters: Evidence for Higher Gas Fractions in High-Density Environments
• MAHALO Deep Cluster Survey I. Accelerated and enhanced galaxy formation in the densest regions of a protocluster at z=2.5
• The implications of the surprising existence of a large, massive CO disk in a distant protocluster
• The reversal of the SF-density relation in a massive, X-ray selected galaxy cluster at z=1.58: results from Herschel
• The IR Luminosity Functions of Rich Clusters
• Dust and Gas in Star Forming Galaxies at z~3 - Extending Galaxy Uniformity to 11.5 Billion Years
• The Evolution of the Star Formation Rate of Galaxies at 0.0 < z < 1.2
• Emergence of an Ultra-Red Ultra-Massive Galaxy Cluster Core at $z=4$
• The Molecular Gas Reservoirs of $z\sim 2$ Galaxies: A comparison of CO(1-0) and dust-based molecular gas masses
• The effect of environment on star forming galaxies at redshift 1 - First insight from PACS
• Star formation in the cluster CLG0218.3-0510 at z=1.62 and its large-scale environment: the infrared perspective
• VALES: III. The calibration between the dust continuum and interstellar gas content of star-forming galaxies
• Evidence for Cold-stream to Hot-accretion Transition as Traced by Lyα Emission from Groups and Clusters at 2 < z < 3.3
• The Evolution of Dusty Star formation in Galaxy Clusters to z = 1: Spitzer IR Observations of the First Red-Sequence Cluster Survey
• Signs of environmental effects on star-forming galaxies in the Spiderweb protocluster at z=2.16
• Two sub-millimetre bright protoclusters bounding the epoch of peak star-formation activity
• SPITZER observations of Abell 1763. III. The infrared luminosity function in different supercluster environments
• Cosmic Vine: A z=3.44 large-scale structure hosting massive quiescent galaxies
• An ancient massive quiescent galaxy found in a gas-rich z ~ 3 group
• The role of massive halos in the Star Formation History of the Universe
• VLA Legacy Survey of Molecular Gas in Massive Star-forming Galaxies at High Redshift
• Rapid build-up of the stellar content in the protocluster core SPT2349$-$56 at $z=4.3$
• Massive galaxy formation caught in action at z~5 with JWST
• A galaxy group candidate at z~3.7 in the COSMOS field
• Noema formIng Cluster survEy (NICE): Discovery of a starbursting galaxy group with a radio-luminous core at z=3.95
• NOEMA formIng Cluster survEy (NICE): Characterizing eight massive galaxy groups at $1.5<z<4$ in the COSMOS field
• Revealing Dust Obscured Star Formation in CLJ1449+0856, a Cluster at z=2
• Cosmic evolution of radio-excess AGNs in quiescent and star-forming galaxies across $0<z<4$
• ASW${}^2$DF: Census of the obscured star formation in a galaxy cluster in formation at $z=2.2$
• COALAS III: The ATCA CO(1-0) look at the growth and death of H$\alpha$ emitters in the Spiderweb protocluster at z=2.16
• Revealing the hidden cosmic feast: A z=4.3 galaxy group hosting two optically dark, efficiently star-forming galaxies