A Search for Dense Molecular Gas in High‐Redshift Infrared‐Luminous Galaxies

2005 ◽  
Vol 618 (2) ◽  
pp. 586-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. L. Carilli ◽  
P. Solomon ◽  
P. Vanden Bout ◽  
F. Walter ◽  
Alexandre Beelen ◽  
...  
Author(s):  
Thiago S. Gonçalves

AbstractHow is gas converted into stars across cosmic time? Observations of star-forming galaxies at high redshift indicate that the conditions of the interstellar medium (ISM) were remarkably distinct from typical spirals in the local universe. Nevertheless, these observations are biased towards objects brighter than L*, due to the large luminosity distances involved. Here I present a survey targeting the molecular gas in galaxies at low redshift (z ~ 0.2) with ISM conditions remarkably similar to those observed at earlier epochs, including high star formation rates and lower metallicities. CO observations performed with CARMA indicate that these galaxies follow the same star-formation law as local spirals and other galaxies at the same redshift, albeit at much higher densities. We also present recent results from our ALMA program studying galaxies down to 12 + log(O/H) ~ 8, and discuss the implications of these data to our understanding of the molecular gas reservoir and the conversion factor between CO luminosity and gas mass in environments that are simultaneously low in metal content and extremely dense.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (S359) ◽  
pp. 136-140
Author(s):  
Minju M. Lee ◽  
Ichi Tanaka ◽  
Rohei Kawabe

AbstractWe present studies of a protocluster at z =2.5, an overdense region found close to a radio galaxy, 4C 23.56, using ALMA. We observed 1.1 mm continuum, two CO lines (CO (4–3) and CO (3–2)) and the lower atomic carbon line transition ([CI](3P1-3P0)) at a few kpc (0″.3-0″.9) resolution. The primary targets are 25 star-forming galaxies selected as Hα emitters (HAEs) that are identified with a narrow band filter. These are massive galaxies with stellar masses of > 1010Mʘ that are mostly on the galaxy main sequence at z =2.5. We measure the molecular gas mass from the independent gas tracers of 1.1 mm, CO (3–2) and [CI], and investigate the gas kinematics of galaxies from CO (4–3). Molecular gas masses from the different measurements are consistent with each other for detection, with a gas fraction (fgas = Mgas/(Mgas+ Mstar)) of ≃ 0.5 on average but with a caveat. On the other hand, the CO line widths of the protocluster galaxies are typically broader by ˜50% compared to field galaxies, which can be attributed to more frequent, unresolved gas-rich mergers and/or smaller sizes than field galaxies, supported by our high-resolution images and a kinematic model fit of one of the galaxies. We discuss the expected scenario of galaxy evolution in protoclusters at high redshift but future large surveys are needed to get a more general view.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (S237) ◽  
pp. 331-335
Author(s):  
Yu Gao

AbstractActive star formation (SF) is tightly related to the dense molecular gas in the giant molecular clouds' dense cores. Our HCN (measure of the dense molecular gas) survey in 65 galaxies (including 10 ultraluminous galaxies) reveals a tight linear correlation between HCN and IR (SF rate) luminosities, whereas the correlation between IR and CO (measure of the total molecular gas) luminosities is nonlinear. This suggests that the global SF rate depends more intimately upon the amount of dense molecular gas than the total molecular gas content. This linear relationship extends to both the dense cores in the Galaxy and the hyperluminous extreme starbursts at high-redshift. Therefore, the global SF law in dense gas appears to be linear all the way from dense cores to extreme starbursts, spanning over nine orders of magnitude in IR luminosity.


2017 ◽  
Vol 608 ◽  
pp. A144 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Yang ◽  
A. Omont ◽  
A. Beelen ◽  
Y. Gao ◽  
P. van der Werf ◽  
...  

We present the IRAM-30 m observations of multiple-J CO (Jup mostly from 3 up to 8) and [C I](3P2 → 3P1) ([C I](2–1) hereafter) line emission in a sample of redshift ~2–4 submillimeter galaxies (SMGs). These SMGs are selected among the brightest-lensed galaxies discovered in the Herschel-Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS). Forty-seven CO lines and 7 [C I](2–1) lines have been detected in 15 lensed SMGs. A non-negligible effect of differential lensing is found for the CO emission lines, which could have caused significant underestimations of the linewidths, and hence of the dynamical masses. The CO spectral line energy distributions (SLEDs), peaking around Jup ~ 5–7, are found to be similar to those of the local starburst-dominated ultra-luminous infrared galaxies and of the previously studied SMGs. After correcting for lensing amplification, we derived the global properties of the bulk of molecular gas in the SMGs using non-LTE radiative transfer modelling, such as the molecular gas density nH2 ~ 102.5–104.1 cm-3 and the kinetic temperature Tk  ~ 20–750 K. The gas thermal pressure Pth ranging from~105 K cm-3 to 106 K cm-3 is found to be correlated with star formation efficiency. Further decomposing the CO SLEDs into two excitation components, we find a low-excitation component with nH2 ~ 102.8–104.6 cm-3 and Tk  ~ 20–30 K, which is less correlated with star formation, and a high-excitation one (nH2 ~ 102.7–104.2 cm-3, Tk  ~ 60–400 K) which is tightly related to the on-going star-forming activity. Additionally, tight linear correlations between the far-infrared and CO line luminosities have been confirmed for the Jup ≥ 5 CO lines of these SMGs, implying that these CO lines are good tracers of star formation. The [C I](2–1) lines follow the tight linear correlation between the luminosities of the [C I](2–1) and the CO(1–0) line found in local starbursts, indicating that [C I] lines could serve as good total molecular gas mass tracers for high-redshift SMGs as well. The total mass of the molecular gas reservoir, (1–30) × 1010M⊙, derived based on the CO(3–2) fluxes and αCO(1–0) = 0.8 M⊙ ( K km s-1 pc2)-1, suggests a typical molecular gas depletion time tdep ~ 20–100 Myr and a gas to dust mass ratio δGDR ~ 30–100 with ~20%–60% uncertainty for the SMGs. The ratio between CO line luminosity and the dust mass L′CO/Mdust appears to be slowly increasing with redshift for high-redshift SMGs, which need to be further confirmed by a more complete SMG sample at various redshifts. Finally, through comparing the linewidth of CO and H2O lines, we find that they agree well in almost all our SMGs, confirming that the emitting regions of the CO and H2O lines are co-spatially located.


Author(s):  
C. L. CARILLI ◽  
F. BERTOLDI ◽  
F. WALTER ◽  
K.M. MENTEN ◽  
A. BEELEN ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2009 ◽  
Vol 496 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. K. Knudsen ◽  
R. Neri ◽  
J.-P. Kneib ◽  
P. P. van der Werf
Keyword(s):  

2004 ◽  
Vol 614 (2) ◽  
pp. L97-L100 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. A. Vanden Bout ◽  
P. M. Solomon ◽  
R. J. Maddalena

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (S280) ◽  
pp. 325-338
Author(s):  
Kirsten Kraiberg Knudsen

AbstractI present an overview of the molecular gas observations in high redshift galaxies. This field has seen tremendous progress in the past few years, with an increased number of detections of other molecules than CO. The molecular line observations are done towards different classes of massive starbursts, including submillimeter galaxies, quasars, and massive gas-rich disks. I will highlight results of detections of HCN, HCO+, and other small molecules, as well as the Spitzer detections of PAHs. Additionally, I will discuss about the excitation of CO and other species in the high-z galaxies and put this in the context of new telescopes such as ALMA.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 160025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhi-Yu Zhang ◽  
Padelis P. Papadopoulos ◽  
R. J. Ivison ◽  
Maud Galametz ◽  
M. W. L. Smith ◽  
...  

Images of dust continuum and carbon monoxide (CO) line emission are powerful tools for deducing structural characteristics of galaxies, such as disc sizes, H 2 gas velocity fields and enclosed H 2 and dynamical masses. We report on a fundamental constraint set by the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on the observed structural and dynamical characteristics of galaxies, as deduced from dust continuum and CO-line imaging at high redshifts. As the CMB temperature rises in the distant Universe, the ensuing thermal equilibrium between the CMB and the cold dust and H 2 gas progressively erases all spatial and spectral contrasts between their brightness distributions and the CMB. For high-redshift galaxies, this strongly biases the recoverable H 2 gas and dust mass distributions, scale lengths, gas velocity fields and dynamical mass estimates. This limitation is unique to millimetre/submillimetre wavelengths and unlike its known effect on the global dust continuum and molecular line emission of galaxies, it cannot be addressed simply. We nevertheless identify a unique signature of CMB-affected continuum brightness distributions, namely an increasing rather than diminishing contrast between such brightness distributions and the CMB when the cold dust in distant galaxies is imaged at frequencies beyond the Raleigh–Jeans limit. For the molecular gas tracers, the same effect makes the atomic carbon lines maintain a larger contrast than the CO lines against the CMB.


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