We use the first systematic data sets of CO molecular line emission in z∼ 1–3 normal star-forming galaxies (SFGs) for a comparison of the dependence of galaxy-averaged star formation rates on ...molecular gas masses at low and high redshifts, and in different galactic environments. Although the current high-z samples are still small and biased towards the luminous and massive tail of the actively star-forming ‘main-sequence’, a fairly clear picture is emerging. Independent of whether galaxy-integrated quantities or surface densities are considered, low- and high-z SFG populations appear to follow similar molecular gas–star formation relations with slopes 1.1 to 1.2, over three orders of magnitude in gas mass or surface density. The gas-depletion time-scale in these SFGs grows from 0.5 Gyr at z∼ 2 to 1.5 Gyr at z∼ 0. The average corresponds to a fairly low star formation efficiency of 2 per cent per dynamical time. Because star formation depletion times are significantly smaller than the Hubble time at all redshifts sampled, star formation rates and gas fractions are set by the balance between gas accretion from the halo and stellar feedback. In contrast, very luminous and ultraluminous, gas-rich major mergers at both low and high z produce on average four to 10 times more far-infrared luminosity per unit gas mass. We show that only some fraction of this difference can be explained by uncertainties in gas mass or luminosity estimators; much of it must be intrinsic. A possible explanation is a top-heavy stellar mass function in the merging systems but the most likely interpretation is that the star formation relation is driven by global dynamical effects. For a given mass, the more compact merger systems produce stars more rapidly because their gas clouds are more compressed with shorter dynamical times, so that they churn more quickly through the available gas reservoir than the typical normal disc galaxies. When the dependence on galactic dynamical time-scale is explicitly included, disc galaxies and mergers appear to follow similar gas-to-star formation relations. The mergers may be forming stars at slightly higher efficiencies than the discs.
Stars form from cold molecular interstellar gas. As this is relatively rare in the local Universe, galaxies like the Milky Way form only a few new stars per year. Typical massive galaxies in the ...distant Universe formed stars an order of magnitude more rapidly. Unless star formation was significantly more efficient, this difference suggests that young galaxies were much more molecular-gas rich. Molecular gas observations in the distant Universe have so far largely been restricted to very luminous, rare objects, including mergers and quasars, and accordingly we do not yet have a clear idea about the gas content of more normal (albeit massive) galaxies. Here we report the results of a survey of molecular gas in samples of typical massive-star-forming galaxies at mean redshifts of about 1.2 and 2.3, when the Universe was respectively 40% and 24% of its current age. Our measurements reveal that distant star forming galaxies were indeed gas rich, and that the star formation efficiency is not strongly dependent on cosmic epoch. The average fraction of cold gas relative to total galaxy baryonic mass at z = 2.3 and z = 1.2 is respectively about 44% and 34%, three to ten times higher than in today’s massive spiral galaxies. The slow decrease between z 2 and z 1 probably requires a mechanism of semi-continuous replenishment of fresh gas to the young galaxies.
We have studied the properties of giant star-forming clumps in five z {approx} 2 star-forming disks with deep SINFONI AO spectroscopy at the ESO VLT. The clumps reside in disk regions where the ...Toomre Q-parameter is below unity, consistent with their being bound and having formed from gravitational instability. Broad H{alpha}/N II line wings demonstrate that the clumps are launching sites of powerful outflows. The inferred outflow rates are comparable to or exceed the star formation rates, in one case by a factor of eight. Typical clumps may lose a fraction of their original gas by feedback in a few hundred million years, allowing them to migrate into the center. The most active clumps may lose much of their mass and disrupt in the disk. The clumps leave a modest imprint on the gas kinematics. Velocity gradients across the clumps are 10-40 km s{sup -1} kpc{sup -1}, similar to the galactic rotation gradients. Given beam smearing and clump sizes, these gradients may be consistent with significant rotational support in typical clumps. Extreme clumps may not be rotationally supported; either they are not virialized or they are predominantly pressure supported. The velocity dispersion is spatially rather constant and increases only weakly with star formation surface density. The large velocity dispersions may be driven by the release of gravitational energy, either at the outer disk/accreting streams interface, and/or by the clump migration within the disk. Spatial variations in the inferred gas phase oxygen abundance are broadly consistent with inside-out growing disks, and/or with inward migration of the clumps.
We report the detection of extended Lyα emission around individual star-forming galaxies at redshifts z = 3−6 in an ultradeep exposure of the Hubble Deep Field South obtained with MUSE on the ...ESO-VLT. The data reach a limiting surface brightness (1σ) of ~1 × 10-19 erg s-1 cm-2 arcsec-2 in azimuthally averaged radial profiles, an order of magnitude improvement over previous narrowband imaging. Our sample consists of 26 spectroscopically confirmed Lyα-emitting, but mostly continuum-faint (mAB ≳ 27) galaxies. In most objects the Lyα emission is considerably more extended than the UV continuum light. While five of the faintest galaxies in the sample show no significantly detected Lyα haloes, the derived upper limits suggest that this is due to insufficient S/N. Lyα haloes therefore appear to be ubiquitous even for low-mass (~ 108−109 M⊙) star-forming galaxies at z > 3. We decompose the Lyα emission of each object into a compact component tracing the UV continuum and an extended halo component, and infer sizes and luminosities of the haloes. The extended Lyα emission approximately follows an exponential surface brightness distribution with a scale length of a few kpc. While these haloes are thus quite modest in terms of their absolute sizes, they are larger by a factor of 5−15 than the corresponding rest-frame UV continuum sources as seen by HST. They are also much more extended, by a factor ~5, than Lyα haloes around low-redshift star-forming galaxies. Between ~40% and ≳90% of the observed Lyα flux comes from the extended halo component, with no obvious correlation of this fraction with either the absolute or the relative size of the Lyα halo. Our observations provide direct insights into the spatial distribution of at least partly neutral gas residing in the circumgalactic medium of low to intermediate mass galaxies at z > 3.
ABSTRACT
The physical properties of galactic winds are one of the keys to understand galaxy formation and evolution. These properties can be constrained thanks to background quasar lines of sight ...(LOS) passing near star-forming galaxies (SFGs). We present the first results of the MusE GAs FLOw and Wind survey obtained from two quasar fields, which have eight Mg
ii
absorbers of which three have rest equivalent width greater than 0.8 Å. With the new Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope (VLT), we detect six (75%) Mg
ii
host galaxy candidates within a radius of 30″ from the quasar LOS. Out of these six galaxy–quasar pairs, from geometrical argument, one is likely probing galactic outflows, where two are classified as “ambiguous,” two are likely probing extended gaseous disks and one pair seems to be a merger. We focus on the wind-pair and constrain the outflow using a high-resolution quasar spectra from the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph. Assuming the metal absorption to be due to ga;s flowing out of the detected galaxy through a cone along the minor axis, we find outflow velocities in the order of ≈150
(i.e., smaller than the escape velocity) with a loading factor,
, of ≈0.7. We see evidence for an open conical flow, with a low-density inner core. In the future, MUSE will provide us with about 80 multiple galaxy−quasar pairs in two dozen fields.
Galaxies are surrounded by large reservoirs of gas, mostly hydrogen, that are fed by inflows from the intergalactic medium and by outflows from galactic winds. Absorption-line measurements along the ...lines of sight to bright and rare background quasars indicate that this circumgalactic medium extends far beyond the starlight seen in galaxies, but very little is known about its spatial distribution. The Lyman-α transition of atomic hydrogen at a wavelength of 121.6 nanometres is an important tracer of warm (about 10
kelvin) gas in and around galaxies, especially at cosmological redshifts greater than about 1.6 at which the spectral line becomes observable from the ground. Tracing cosmic hydrogen through its Lyman-α emission has been a long-standing goal of observational astrophysics
, but the extremely low surface brightness of the spatially extended emission is a formidable obstacle. A new window into circumgalactic environments was recently opened by the discovery of ubiquitous extended Lyman-α emission from hydrogen around high-redshift galaxies
. Such measurements were previously limited to especially favourable systems
or to the use of massive statistical averaging
because of the faintness of this emission. Here we report observations of low-surface-brightness Lyman-α emission surrounding faint galaxies at redshifts between 3 and 6. We find that the projected sky coverage approaches 100 per cent. The corresponding rate of incidence (the mean number of Lyman-α emitters penetrated by any arbitrary line of sight) is well above unity and similar to the incidence rate of high-column-density absorbers frequently detected in the spectra of distant quasars
. This similarity suggests that most circumgalactic atomic hydrogen at these redshifts has now been detected in emission.
Observations and theoretical simulations have established a framework for galaxy formation and evolution in the young Universe. Galaxies formed as baryonic gas cooled at the centres of collapsing ...dark-matter haloes; mergers of haloes and galaxies then led to the hierarchical build-up of galaxy mass. It remains unclear, however, over what timescales galaxies were assembled and when and how bulges and disks--the primary components of present-day galaxies--were formed. It is also puzzling that the most massive galaxies were more abundant and were forming stars more rapidly at early epochs than expected from models. Here we report high-angular-resolution observations of a representative luminous star-forming galaxy when the Universe was only 20% of its current age. A large and massive rotating protodisk is channelling gas towards a growing central stellar bulge hosting an accreting massive black hole. The high surface densities of gas, the high rate of star formation and the moderately young stellar ages suggest rapid assembly, fragmentation and conversion to stars of an initially very gas-rich protodisk, with no obvious evidence for a major merger.
Abstract The Lyman alpha (Ly α) line of Hydrogen is a prominent feature in the spectra of star-forming galaxies, usually redshifted by a few hundreds of km s−1 compared to the systemic redshift. This ...large offset hampers follow-up surveys, galaxy pair statistics, and correlations with quasar absorption lines when only Ly α is available. We propose diagnostics that can be used to recover the systemic redshift directly from the properties of the Ly α line profile. We use spectroscopic observations of Ly α emitters for which a precise measurement of the systemic redshift is available. Our sample contains 13 sources detected between z ≈ 3 and z ≈ 6 as part of various multi-unit spectroscopic explorer guaranteed time observations. We also include a compilation of spectroscopic Ly α data from the literature spanning a wide redshift range (z ≈ 0–8). First, restricting our analysis to double-peaked Ly α spectra, we find a tight correlation between the velocity offset of the red peak with respect to the systemic redshift, $V_{\rm peak}^{\rm red}$, and the separation of the peaks. Secondly, we find a correlation between $V_{\rm peak}^{\rm red}$ and the full width at half-maximum of the Ly α line. Fitting formulas to estimate systemic redshifts of galaxies with an accuracy of ≤100 km s−1, when only the Ly α emission line is available, are given for the two methods.
We have conducted a two-layered spectroscopic survey (1′ × 1′ ultra deep and 3′ × 3′ deep regions) in the
Hubble
Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE). The ...combination of a large field of view, high sensitivity, and wide wavelength coverage provides an order of magnitude improvement in spectroscopically confirmed redshifts in the HUDF; i.e., 1206 secure spectroscopic redshifts for
Hubble
Space Telescope (HST) continuum selected objects, which corresponds to 15% of the total (7904). The redshift distribution extends well beyond
z
> 3 and to HST/
F775W
magnitudes as faint as ≈ 30 mag (AB, 1
σ
). In addition, 132 secure redshifts were obtained for sources with no HST counterparts that were discovered in the MUSE data cubes by a blind search for emission-line features. In total, we present 1338 high quality redshifts, which is a factor of eight increase compared with the previously known spectroscopic redshifts in the same field. We assessed redshifts mainly with the spectral features O
ii
at
z
< 1.5 (473 objects) and Ly
α
at 2.9 <
z
< 6.7 (692 objects). With respect to
F775W
magnitude, a 50% completeness is reached at 26.5 mag for ultra deep and 25.5 mag for deep fields, and the completeness remains ≳ 20% up to 28–29 mag and ≈ 27 mag, respectively. We used the determined redshifts to test continuum color selection (dropout) diagrams of high-
z
galaxies. The selection condition for
F336W
dropouts successfully captures ≈ 80% of the targeted
z
~ 2.7 galaxies. However, for higher redshift selections (
F435W
,
F606W
, and
F775W
dropouts), the success rates decrease to ≈ 20–40%. We empirically redefine the selection boundaries to make an attempt to improve them to ≈ 60%. The revised boundaries allow bluer colors that capture Ly
α
emitters with high Ly
α
equivalent widths falling in the broadbands used for the color-color selection. Along with this paper, we release the redshift and line flux catalog.
Following the success of the Plateau de Bure high-
z
Blue Sequence Survey (PHIBSS), we present the PHIBSS2 legacy program, a survey of the molecular gas properties of star-forming galaxies on and ...around the star-formation main sequence (MS) at different redshifts using IRAM’s NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA). This survey significantly extends the existing sample of star-forming galaxies with CO molecular gas measurements, probing the peak epoch of star formation (
z
= 1 − 1.6) as well as its building-up (
z
= 2 − 3) and winding-down (
z
= 0.5 − 0.8) phases. The targets are drawn from the well-studied GOODS, COSMOS, and AEGIS cosmological deep fields and uniformly sample the MS in the stellar mass (
M
⋆
) – star formation rate (SFR) plane with log(
M
⋆
/
M
⊙
) = 10 − 11.8 and SFR = 3.5 − 500
M
⊙
yr
−1
without morphological selection, thus providing a statistically meaningful census of star-forming galaxies at different epochs. We describe the survey strategy and sample selection before focusing on the results obtained at redshift
z
= 0.5 − 0.8, where we report 60 CO(2-1) detections out of 61 targets. We determine molecular gas masses between 2 × 10
9
and 5 × 10
10
M
⊙
and separately obtain disc sizes and bulge-to-total (
B
/
T
) luminosity ratios from HST
I
-band images. The median molecular gas-to-stellar mass ratio
μ
gas
∼ = 0.28 ± 0.04, gas fraction
f
gas
∼ = 0.22 ± 0.02, and depletion time $ \widetilde{t_{\mathrm{depl}}} = 0.84 \pm 0.07\,\mathrm{Gyr} $ as well as their dependence with stellar mass and offset from the MS follow published scaling relations for a much larger sample of galaxies spanning a significantly wider range of redshifts, the cosmic evolution of the SFR being mainly driven by that of the molecular gas fraction. The galaxy-averaged molecular Kennicutt–Schmidt (KS) relation between molecular gas and SFR surface densities is strikingly linear, pointing towards similar star formation timescales within galaxies at any given epoch. In terms of morphology, the molecular gas content, the SFR, the disc stellar mass, and the disc molecular gas fraction do not seem to correlate with
B
/
T
and the stellar surface density, which suggests an ongoing supply of fresh molecular gas to compensate for the build-up of the bulge. Our measurements do not yield any significant variation of the depletion time with
B
/
T
and hence no strong evidence for morphological quenching within the scatter of the MS.
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