1,641 research outputs found
Strong [CII] emission at high redshift
We report the detection of the [CII]157.74um fine-structure line in the
lensed galaxy BRI 0952-0115 at z=4.43, using the APEX telescope. This is the
first detection of the [CII] line in a source with L_FIR < 10^13 L_sun at high
redshift. The line is very strong compared to previous [CII] detections at
high-z (a factor of 5-8 higher in flux), partly due to the lensing
amplification. The L_[CII]/L_FIR ratio is 10^-2.9, which is higher than
observed in local galaxies with similar infrared luminosities. Together with
previous observations of [CII] at high redshift, our result suggests that the
[CII] emission in high redshift galaxies is enhanced relative to local galaxies
of the same infrared luminosity. This finding may result from selection effects
of the few current observations of [CII] at high redshift, and in particular
the fact that non detections may have not been published (although the few
published upper limits are still consistent with the [CII] enhancement
scenario). If the trend is confirmed with larger samples, it would indicate
that high-z galaxies are characterized by different physical conditions with
respect to their local counterparts. Regardless of the physical origin of the
trend, this effect would increase the potential of the [CII]158um line to
search and characterize high-z sources.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A Letters, 5 pages, 2 figure
Mapping metals at high redshift with far-infrared lines
Cosmic metal enrichment is one of the key physical processes regulating
galaxy formation and the evolution of the intergalactic medium (IGM). However,
determining the metal content of the most distant galaxies has proven so far
almost impossible; also, absorption line experiments at become
increasingly difficult because of instrumental limitations and the paucity of
background quasars. With the advent of ALMA, far-infrared emission lines
provide a novel tool to study early metal enrichment. Among these, the [CII]
line at 157.74 m is the most luminous line emitted by the interstellar
medium of galaxies. It can also resonant scatter CMB photons inducing
characteristic intensity fluctuations () near the peak of the
CMB spectrum, thus allowing to probe the low-density IGM. We compute both [CII]
galaxy emission and metal-induced CMB fluctuations at by using
Adaptive Mesh Refinement cosmological hydrodynamical simulations and produce
mock observations to be directly compared with ALMA BAND6 data ( GHz). The [CII] line flux is correlated with as
. Such
relation is in very good agreement with recent ALMA observations (e.g. Maiolino
et al. 2015; Capak et al. 2015) of galaxies. We predict that a
() galaxy can be detected at in
(2000) hours, respectively. CMB resonant scattering can produce Jy/beam emission/absorptions features that are very challenging to be
detected with current facilities. The best strategy to detect these signals
consists in the stacking of deep ALMA observations pointing fields with known
galaxies. This would allow to simultaneously detect both
[CII] emission from galactic reionization sources and CMB fluctuations produced
by metals.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure
Outflows and complex stellar kinematics in SDSS star-forming galaxies
We investigate the properties of star-formation-driven outflows by using a large spectroscopic sample of ∼160 000 local "normal" star-forming galaxies drawn from the Sloan digital sky survey (SDSS), spanning a wide range of star formation rates (SFRs) and stellar masses (M∗). The galaxy sample is divided into a fine grid of bins in the M∗-SFR parameter space, for each of which we produced a composite spectrum by stacking the SDSS spectra of the galaxies contained in that bin together. We exploited the high signal-to-noise of the stacked spectra to study the emergence of faint features of optical emission lines that may trace galactic outflows and are otherwise too faint to detect in individual galaxy spectra. We have adopted a novel approach that relies on the comparison between the line-of-sight velocity distribution (LoSVD) of the ionised gas (as traced by the [OIII]λ5007 and Hα+[NII]λλ6548, 6583 emission lines) and the LoSVD of the stars, which are used as a reference for tracing virial motions. Significant deviations in the gas kinematics from the stellar kinematics in the high-velocity tail of the LoSVDs are interpreted as a signature of outflows. Our results suggest that the incidence of ionised outflows increases with SFR and specific SFR. The outflow velocity (vout) is found to correlate tightly with the SFR for SFR> 1 M⊙yr-1, whereas the dependence of vouton SFR is nearly flat at lower SFRs. The outflow velocity appears to also increase with the stellar velocity dispersion (σ∗), although this relation has a much larger scatter than the one with SFR, and we infer velocities as high as vout∼ (6-8)σ∗. Strikingly, we detect the signature of ionised outflows only in galaxies located above the main sequence (MS) of star-forming galaxies in the M∗-SFR diagram, and the incidence of such outflows increases sharply with the offset from the MS. This result suggests that star-formation-driven outflows may be responsible for shaping the upper envelope of the MS by providing a self-regulating mechanism for star formation. Finally, our complementary analysis of the stellar kinematics reveals the presence of blue asymmetries of a few 10 km s-1in the stellar LoSVDs. The origin of such asymmetries is not clear, but a possibility is that they trace the presence of a large number of high velocity runaway stars and hypervelocity stars in radial trajectories in local galaxies
Very extended cold gas, star formation and outflows in the halo of a bright QSO at z>6
Past observations of QSO host galaxies at z >6 have found cold gas and star
formation on compact scales of a few kiloparsecs. We present new high
sensitivity IRAM PdBI follow-up observations of the [CII] 158micron emission
line and FIR continuum in the host galaxy of SDSS J1148+5152, a luminous QSO at
redshift 6.4189. We find that a large fraction of the gas traced by [CII] is at
high velocities, up to ~1400 km/s relative to the systemic velocity, confirming
the presence of a major quasar-driven outflow indicated by previous
observations. The outflow has a complex morphology and reaches a maximum
projected radius of ~30 kpc. The extreme spatial extent of the outflow allows
us, for the first time in an external galaxy, to estimate mass-loss rate,
kinetic power and momentum rate of the outflow as a function of the projected
distance from the nucleus and the dynamical time-scale. These trends reveal
multiple outflow events during the past 100 Myr, although the bulk of the mass,
energy and momentum appear to have been released more recently, within the past
~20 Myr. Surprisingly, we discover that also the quiescent gas at systemic
velocity is extremely extended. More specifically, we find that, while 30% of
the [CII] within v\in(-200, 200) km/s traces a compact component that is not
resolved by our observations, 70% of the [CII] emission in this velocity range
is extended, with a projected FWHM size of 17.4+-1.4 kpc. We detect FIR
continuum emission associated with both the compact and the extended [CII]
components, although the extended FIR emission has a FWHM of 11+-3 kpc, thus
smaller than the extended [CII] source. Overall, our results indicate that the
cold gas traced by [CII] is distributed up to r~30 kpc. A large fraction of
extended [CII] is likely associated with star formation on large scales, but
the [CII] source extends well beyond the FIR continuum.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 21 pages, 18 figures, 3 tables (v2:
accepted version, discussion expanded in Sect. 3, 4 and in the Appendices,
minor changes elsewhere
A Kiloparsec-Scale Hyper-Starburst in a Quasar Host Less than 1 Gigayear after the Big Bang
The host galaxy of the quasar SDSS J114816.64+525150.3 (at redshift z=6.42,
when the Universe was <1 billion years old) has an infrared luminosity of
2.2x10^13 L_sun, presumably significantly powered by a massive burst of star
formation. In local examples of extremely luminous galaxies such as Arp220, the
burst of star formation is concentrated in the relatively small central region
of <100pc radius. It is unknown on which scales stars are forming in active
galaxies in the early Universe, which are likely undergoing their initial burst
of star formation. We do know that at some early point structures comparable to
the spheroidal bulge of the Milky Way must have formed. Here we report a
spatially resolved image of [CII] emission of the host galaxy of
J114816.64+525150.3 that demonstrates that its star forming gas is distributed
over a radius of ~750pc around the centre. The surface density of the star
formation rate averaged over this region is ~1000 M_sun/yr/kpc^2. This surface
density is comparable to the peak in Arp220, though ~2 orders of magnitudes
larger in area. This vigorous star forming event will likely give rise to a
massive spheroidal component in this system.Comment: Nature, in press, Feb 5 issue, p. 699-70
The Phoenix galaxy: UGC4203 re-birth from its ashes?
We report on a dramatic transition between a Compton-thick,
reflection-dominated state and a Compton-thin state in the Seyfert 2 galaxy
UGC4203, discovered by comparing a recent (May 2001) XMM-Newton observation
with ASCA observations performed about six years earlier. This transition can
be explained either as a change in the column density of the absorber, maybe
due to moving clouds in a clumpy torus, or as the revival of a transient active
nucleus, which was in a phase of very low activity when observed by ASCA. If
the latter explanation is correct, spectral transitions of this kind provide
observational support to the idea that Compton-thick and Compton-thin regions
coexist in the same source, the former likely to be identified with the
"torus", the latter with dust lanes on much larger scales.Comment: 6 Latex pages, 5 figures, To appear in Astronomy & Astrophysic
Enhanced [CII] emission in a z=4.76 submillimetre galaxy
We present the detection of bright [CII] emission in the z=4.76 submillimetre
galaxy LESS J033229.4-275619 using the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment. This
represents the highest redshift [CII] detection in a submm selected,
star-formation dominated system. The AGN contributions to the [CII] and
far-infrared (FIR) luminosities are small. We find an atomic mass derived from
[CII] comparable to the molecular mass derived from CO. The ratio of the [CII],
CO and FIR luminosities imply a radiation field strength G_0~10^3 and a density
~10^4 cm^-3 in a kpc-scale starburst, as seen in local and high redshift
starbursts. The high L_[CII]/L_FIR=2.4x10^-3 and the very high
L_[CII]/L_CO(1-0) ~ 10^4 are reminiscent of low metallicity dwarf galaxies,
suggesting that the highest redshift star-forming galaxies may also be
characterised by lower metallicities. We discuss the implications of a reduced
metallicity on studies of the gas reservoirs, and conclude that especially at
very high redshift, [CII] may be a more powerful and reliable tracer of the
interstellar matter than CO.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysics Letter
NGC6240: extended CO structures and their association with shocked gas
We present deep CO observations of NGC6240 performed with the IRAM Plateau de
Bure Interferometer (PdBI). NGC6240 is the prototypical example of a major
galaxy merger in progress, caught at an early stage, with an extended,
strongly-disturbed butterfly-like morphology and the presence of a heavily
obscured active nucleus in the core of each progenitor galaxy. The CO line
shows a skewed profile with very broad and asymmetric wings detected out to
velocities of -600 km/s and +800 km/s with respect to the systemic velocity.
The PdBI maps reveal the existence of two prominent structures of blueshifted
CO emission. One extends eastward, i.e. approximately perpendicular to the line
connecting the galactic nuclei, over scales of ~7 kpc and shows velocities up
to -400 km/s. The other extends southwestward out to ~7 kpc from the nuclear
region, and has a velocity of -100 km/s with respect to the systemic one.
Interestingly, redshifted emission with velocities 400 to 800 km/s is detected
around the two nuclei, extending in the east-west direction, and partly
overlapping with the eastern blue-shifted structure, although tracing a more
compact region of size ~1.7 kpc. The overlap between the southwestern CO blob
and the dust lanes seen in HST images, which are interpreted as tidal tails,
indicates that the molecular gas is deeply affected by galaxy interactions. The
eastern blueshifted CO emission is co-spatial with an Halpha filament that is
associated with strong H2 and soft X-ray emission. The analysis of Chandra
X-ray data provides strong evidence for shocked gas at the position of the
Halpha emission. Its association with outflowing molecular gas supports a
scenario where the molecular gas is compressed into a shock wave that
propagates eastward from the nuclei. If this is an outflow, the AGN are likely
the driving force.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
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