183 research outputs found

    One Plane for All: Massive Star-Forming and Quiescent Galaxies Lie on the Same Mass Fundamental Plane at z~0 and z~0.7

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    Scaling relations between galaxy structures and dynamics have been studied extensively for early and late-type galaxies, both in the local universe and at high redshifts. The abundant differences between the properties of disky and elliptical, or star-forming and quiescent, galaxies seem to be characteristic of the local Universe; such clear distinctions begin to disintegrate as observations of massive galaxies probe higher redshifts. In this Paper, we investigate the existence the mass fundamental plane of all massive galaxies (σ\sigma\gtrsim 100 km/s). This work includes local galaxies (0.05<z<0.07) from the SDSS, in addition to 31 star-forming and 72 quiescent massive galaxies at intermediate redshift (z~0.7) with absorption line kinematics from deep Keck-DEIMOS spectra and structural parameters from HST imaging. In two parameter scaling relations, star-forming and quiescent galaxies differ structurally and dynamically. However, we show that massive star-forming and quiescent galaxies lie on nearly the same mass fundamental plane, or the relationship between stellar mass surface density, stellar velocity dispersion, and effective radius. The scatter in this relation (measured about logσ\log\sigma) is low: 0.072 dex (0.055 dex intrinsic) at z~0 and 0.10 dex (0.08 dex intrinsic) at z~0.7. This three dimensional surface is not unique: virial relations, with or without a dependence on luminosity profile shapes, can connect galaxy structures and stellar dynamics with similar scatter. This result builds on the recent finding that mass fundamental plane has been stable for early-type galaxies since z~2 (Bezanson et al. 2013). As we now find this also holds for star-forming galaxies to z~0.7, this implies that these scaling relations of galaxies will be minimally susceptible to progenitor biases due to the evolving stellar populations, structures, and dynamics of galaxies through cosmic time.Comment: 28 pages, 22 figures, resubmitted to ApJ after addressing referee comment

    Massive quenched galaxies at z~0.7 retain large molecular gas reservoirs

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    The physical mechanisms that quench star formation, turning blue star-forming galaxies into red quiescent galaxies, remain unclear. In this Letter, we investigate the role of gas supply in suppressing star formation by studying the molecular gas content of post-starburst galaxies. Leveraging the wide area of the SDSS, we identify a sample of massive intermediate-redshift galaxies that have just ended their primary epoch of star formation. We present ALMA CO(2-1) observations of two of these post-starburst galaxies at z~0.7 with M* ~ 2x10^11 Msun. Their molecular gas reservoirs of (6.4 +/- 0.8) x 10^9 Msun and (34.0 +/- 1.6) x 10^9 Msun are an order of magnitude larger than comparable-mass galaxies in the local universe. Our observations suggest that quenching does not require the total removal or depletion of molecular gas, as many quenching models suggest. However, further observations are required both to determine if these apparently quiescent objects host highly obscured star formation and to investigate the intrinsic variation in the molecular gas properties of post-starburst galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters (6 pages, 5 figures

    Discovery of a dark, massive, ALMA-only galaxy at z~5-6 in a tiny 3-millimeter survey

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    We report the serendipitous detection of two 3 mm continuum sources found in deep ALMA Band 3 observations to study intermediate redshift galaxies in the COSMOS field. One is near a foreground galaxy at 1.3", but is a previously unknown dust-obscured star-forming galaxy (DSFG) at probable zCO=3.329z_{CO}=3.329, illustrating the risk of misidentifying shorter wavelength counterparts. The optical-to-mm spectral energy distribution (SED) favors a grey λ0.4\lambda^{-0.4} attenuation curve and results in significantly larger stellar mass and SFR compared to a Calzetti starburst law, suggesting caution when relating progenitors and descendants based on these quantities. The other source is missing from all previous optical/near-infrared/sub-mm/radio catalogs ("ALMA-only"), and remains undetected even in stacked ultradeep optical (>29.6>29.6 AB) and near-infrared (>27.9>27.9 AB) images. Using the ALMA position as a prior reveals faint SNR3SNR\sim3 measurements in stacked IRAC 3.6+4.5, ultradeep SCUBA2 850μ\mum, and VLA 3GHz, indicating the source is real. The SED is robustly reproduced by a massive M=1010.8M^*=10^{10.8}M_\odot and Mgas=1011M_{gas}=10^{11}M_\odot, highly obscured AV4A_V\sim4, star forming SFR300SFR\sim300 M_{\odot}yr1^{-1} galaxy at redshift z=5.5±z=5.5\pm1.1. The ultrasmall 8 arcmin2^{2} survey area implies a large yet uncertain contribution to the cosmic star formation rate density CSFRD(z=5) 0.9×102\sim0.9\times10^{-2} M_{\odot} yr1^{-1} Mpc3^{-3}, comparable to all ultraviolet-selected galaxies combined. These results indicate the existence of a prominent population of DSFGs at z>4z>4, below the typical detection limit of bright galaxies found in single-dish sub-mm surveys, but with larger space densities 3×105\sim3 \times 10^{-5} Mpc3^{-3}, higher duty cycles 50100%50-100\%, contributing more to the CSFRD, and potentially dominating the high-mass galaxy stellar mass function.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 2 galaxies, too many pages, 8 figures, 2 table
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