Search

We report physical properties of the brightest ($S_{870\,\mu \rm m}=12.4$-$19.2\,$mJy) and not strongly lensed 18 870$\,\mu$m selected dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs), also known as submillimeter galaxies (SMGs), in the COSMOS field. This sample is part of an ALMA band$\,$3 spectroscopic survey (AS2COSPEC), and spectroscopic redshifts are measured in 17 of them at $z=2$-$5$. We perform spectral energy distribution analyses and deduce a median total infrared luminosity of $L_{\rm IR}=(1.3\pm0.1)\times10^{13}\,L_{\odot}$, infrared-based star-formation rate of ${\rm SFR}_{\rm IR}=1390\pm150~M_{\odot}\,\rm yr^{-1}$, stellar mass of $M_\ast=(1.4\pm0.6)\times10^{11}\,M_\odot$, dust mass of $M_{\rm dust}=(3.7\pm0.5)\times10^9\,M_\odot$, and molecular gas mass of $M_{\rm gas}= (\alpha_{\rm CO}/0.8)(1.2\pm0.1)\times10^{11}\,M_\odot$, suggesting that they are one of the most massive, ISM-enriched, and actively star-forming systems at $z=2$-$5$. In addition, compared to less massive and less active galaxies at similar epochs, SMGs have comparable gas fractions; however, they have much shorter depletion time, possibly caused by more active dynamical interactions. We determine a median dust emissivity index of $\beta=2.1\pm0.1$ for our sample, and by combining our results with those from other DSFG samples, we find no correlation of $\beta$ with redshift or infrared luminosity, indicating similar dust grain compositions across cosmic time for infrared luminous galaxies. We also find that AS2COSPEC SMGs have one of the highest dust-to-stellar mass ratios, with a median of $0.02\pm0.01$, significantly higher than model predictions, possibly due to too strong of a AGN feedback implemented in the model. Finally, our complete and uniform survey enables us to put constraints on the most massive end of the dust and molecular gas mass functions., Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures, published in ApJ

We present our high-resolution ($0^{\prime\prime}.15\times0^{\prime\prime}.13$, $\sim$34 pc) observations of the CO(6-5) line emission, which probes the warm and dense molecular gas, and the 434 $\mu$m dust continuum emission in the nuclear region of the starburst galaxy IC 5179, conducted with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). The CO(6-5) emission is spatially distributed in filamentary structures with many dense cores and shows a velocity field that is characteristic of a circum-nuclear rotating gas disk, with 90% of the rotation speed arising within a radius of $\lesssim150$ pc. At the scale of our spatial resolution, the CO(6-5) and dust emission peaks do not always coincide, with their surface brightness ratio varying by a factor of $\sim$10. This result suggests that their excitation mechanisms are likely different, as further evidenced by the Southwest to Northeast spatial gradient of both CO-to-dust continuum ratio and Pa-$\alpha$ equivalent width. Within the nuclear region (radius$\sim$300 pc) and with a resolution of $\sim$34 pc, the CO line flux (dust flux density) detected in our ALMA observations is $180\pm18$ Jy km/s ($71\pm7$ mJy), which account for 22% (2.4%) of the total value measured by Herschel., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

We present a statistical study on the [C I]($^{3} \rm P_{1} \rightarrow {\rm ^3 P}_{0}$), [C I] ($^{3} \rm P_{2} \rightarrow {\rm ^3 P}_{1}$) lines (hereafter [C I] (1$-$0) and [C I] (2$-$1), respectively) and the CO (1$-$0) line for a sample of (ultra)luminous infrared galaxies [(U)LIRGs]. We explore the correlations between the luminosities of CO (1$-$0) and [C I] lines, and find that $L'_\mathrm{CO(1-0)}$ correlates almost linearly with both $L'_ \mathrm{[CI](1-0)}$ and $L'_\mathrm{[CI](2-1)}$, suggesting that [C I] lines can trace total molecular gas mass at least for (U)LIRGs. We also investigate the dependence of $L'_\mathrm{[CI](1-0)}$/$L'_\mathrm{CO(1-0)}$, $L'_\mathrm{[CI](2-1)}$/$L'_\mathrm{CO(1-0)}$ and $L'_\mathrm{[CI](2-1)}$/$L'_\mathrm{[CI](1-0)}$ on the far-infrared color of 60-to-100 $\mu$m, and find non-correlation, a weak correlation and a modest correlation, respectively. Under the assumption that these two carbon transitions are optically thin, we further calculate the [C I] line excitation temperatures, atomic carbon masses, and the mean [C I] line flux-to-H$_2$ mass conversion factors for our sample. The resulting $\mathrm{H_2}$ masses using these [C I]-based conversion factors roughly agree with those derived from $L'_\mathrm{CO(1-0)}$ and CO-to-H$_2$ conversion factor., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

We present a study of interstellar medium in the host galaxies of 9 QSOs at 0.1$1 IR bright QSOs. One target, W0752+19, shows an additional broad velocity component (~720 km/s), and exceptionally strong [OI]63$\mu$m emission with LOI/LFIR of $10^{-2}$, an order of magnitude higher than that of average value found among local (U)LIRGs. Combining with the analyses of the {\it SDSS} optical spectra, we conclude that the [OI]63$\mu$m emission in these QSOs is unlikely excited by shocks. We infer that the broad [OI]63 micron emission in W0752+19 could arise from the warm and dense ISM in the narrow line region of the central AGN. Another possible explanation is the existence of a dense gas outflow with $n_{\rm H}\sim10^4$\,cm$^{-3}$, where the corresponding broad [CII] emission is suppressed. Based on the far-IR [OI] and [CII] line ratios, we estimate the constraints on the ISM density and UV radiation field intensity of $n_{\rm H} \lesssim 10^{3.3}$ cm$^{-3}$ and $10^310^4$., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

In this paper, we report our high-resolution ($0^{\prime\prime}.20\times0^{\prime\prime}.14$ or $\sim$$70\times49$ pc) observations of the CO(6-5) line emission, which probes warm and dense molecular gas, and the 434 $\mu$m dust continuum in the nuclear region of NGC 7130, obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). The CO line and dust continuum fluxes detected in our ALMA observations are $1230\pm74$ Jy km s$^{-1}$ and $814\pm52$ mJy, respectively, which account for 100% and 51% of their total respective fluxes. We find that the CO(6-5) and dust emissions are generally spatially correlated, but their brightest peaks show an offset of $\sim$70 pc, suggesting that the gas and dust emissions may start decoupling at this physical scale. The brightest peak of the CO(6-5) emission does not spatially correspond to the radio continuum peak, which is likely dominated by an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). This, together with our additional quantitative analysis, suggests that the heating contribution of the AGN to the CO(6-5) emission in NGC 7130 is negligible. The CO(6-5) and the extinction-corrected Pa-$\alpha$ maps display striking differences, suggestive of either a breakdown of the correlation between warm dense gas and star formation at linear scales of $<$100 pc or a large uncertainty in our extinction correction to the observed Pa-$\alpha$ image. Over a larger scale of $\sim$2.1\,kpc, the double-lobed structure found in the CO(6-5) emission agrees well with the dust lanes in the optical/near-infrared images., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

In this paper, we present the measurements of the [NII] 205micron line ([NII]205) for a flux-limited sample of 122 (ultra-)luminous infrared galaxies [(U)LIRGs] and 20 additional normal galaxies, obtained with the Herschel Space Observatory. We explore the far-infrared (FIR) color dependence of the [NII]205 (L[NII]205) to the total infrared (LIR) luminosity ratio, and find that L[NII]205/LIR only depends modestly on the 70-to-160 micron flux density ratio (f70/f160) when f70/f160 <~ 0.6, whereas such dependence becomes much steeper for f70/f160> 0.6. We also investigate the relation between L[NII]205 and star formation rate (SFR), and show that L[NII]205 has a nearly linear correlation with SFR, albeit the intercept of such relation varies somewhat with f60/f100, consistent with our previous conclusion that \NIIab\ emission can serve as a SFR indicator with an accuracy of ~0.4 dex, or ~0.2 dex if f60/f100 is known independently. Furthermore, together with the ISO measurements of [NII] 122 micron emission we use a total of ~200 galaxies to derive the local [NII]205 luminosity function (LF) by tying it to the known IR LF with a bivariate method. As a practical application, we also compute the local SFR volume density ($\dot{\rho}_{\rm SFR}$) using the newly derived SFR calibrator and LF. The resulting $\log\,\dot{\rho}_{\rm SFR} = -1.96\pm0.11$ $M_\odot$\,yr$^{-1}$\,Mpc$^{-3}$ agrees well with previous studies. Finally, we determine the electron densities ($n_e$) of the ionized medium for a subsample of 12 (U)LIRGs with both [NII]205 and [NII]122 data, and find that $n_e$ is in the range of ~1-100 cm$^{-3}$, with a median value of 22 cm$^{-3}$, Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

We report HCN J=4-3, HCO+ J=4-3, and CS J=7-6 observations in 20 nearby star-forming galaxies with the Acatama Pathfinder EXperiment 12-m telescope. Combined with 4 HCN, 3 HCO+, and 4 CS detections in literature, we probe the empirical link between the luminosity of molecular gas (L_gas) and that of infrared emission (L_IR), up to the highest gas densities (10^6 - 10^8 cm-3) that have been probed so far. For nearby galaxies with large radii, we measure the IR luminosity within the submm beam-size (14"-18") to match the molecular emission. We find linear slopes for L_CS76-L_IR and L_HCN43-L_IR, and a slightly super-linear slope for L_HCO+43-L_IR. The correlation of L_CS76-L_IR even extends over eight orders of luminosity magnitude down to Galactic dense cores, with a fit of log(L_IR)=1.00(\pm 0.01) \times log(L_CS76) + 4.03(\pm 0.04). Such linear correlations appear to hold for all densities >10^4 cm-3, and indicate that star formation rate is not related to free-fall time scale for dense molecular gas., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Comments and suggestions are welcome. Accepted by ApJL

We present results of a statistical study of the cosmic evolution of the mass dependent major-merger rate since z=1. A stellar mass limited sample of close major-merger pairs (the CPAIR sample) was selected from the archive of the COSMOS survey. Pair fractions at different redshifts derived using the CPAIR sample and a local K-band selected pair sample show no significant variations with stellar mass. The pair fraction exhibits moderately strong cosmic evolution, with the best-fitting evolutionary index m=2.2+-0.2. The best-fitting function for the merger rate implies that galaxies with stellar mass between 1E+10 -- 3E+11 M_sun have undergone 0.5 -- 1.5 major-mergers since z=1. Our results show that, for massive galaxies at z<1, major mergers involving star forming galaxies (i.e. wet and mixed mergers) can account for the formation of both ellipticals and red quiescent galaxies (RQGs). On the other hand, major mergers cannot be responsible for the formation of most low mass ellipticals and RQGs. Our quantitative estimates indicate that major mergers have significant impact on the stellar mass assembly of the most massive galaxies, but for less massive galaxies the stellar mass assembly is dominated by the star formation. Comparison with the mass dependent (U)LIRG rates suggests that the frequency of major-merger events is comparable to or higher than that of (U)LIRGs., Comment: 18 pages, accepted by ApJ

We study the stellar populations, star formation histories and star formation properties for a sample of blue compact dwarf galaxies (BCDs) selected by cross-correlating the Gil de Paz et al. (2003) sample with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6 (SDSS DR6). The sample includes 31 BCDs, which span a large range in galactic parameters. Using a stellar population synthesis method, we derive the stellar populations and reconstruct the star formation histories for these BCDs. Our studies confirm that BCDs are not young systems experiencing their first star formation but old systems undergoing a starburst activity. The stellar mass-weighted ages can be as old as 10 Gyr while the luminosity-weighted ages might be up to $\sim 3$ orders of magnitude younger ($\sim 10$ Myr) for most galaxies. Based on multi-wavelength data, we also study the integrated star formation properties. The SFR for our sample galaxies spans nearly 3 orders of magnitude, from a few $10^{-3}$ to $\sim1\,M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$, with the median value of $\sim 0.1\, M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$. We find that about 90% BCDs in our sample have their birthrate parameter (the ratio of the current SFR to the averaged past SFR) $b>2-3$. We further discuss correlations of the current SFR with the integrated galactic stellar mass and explore the connection between SFR and metallicity., Comment: Accepted by AJ