Abstract
High-resolution (1″ × 2″) Atacama Large Millimeter Array CO(2−1) observations of the ram pressure stripped galaxy NGC 4402 in the Virgo cluster show some of the clearest evidence yet for the ...impacts of ram pressure on the molecular interstellar medium (ISM) of a galaxy. The eastern side of the galaxy at
r
∼ 4.5 kpc, upon which ram pressure is incident, has a large (width ∼1 kpc, height ∼1 kpc above the disk midplane) extraplanar plume of molecular gas and dust. Molecular gas in the plume region shows distinct noncircular motions in the direction of the ram pressure; the kinematic offset of up to 60 km s
−1
is consistent with acceleration by ram pressure. We also detect a small amount of gas in clouds below the plume that are spatially and kinematically distinct from the surrounding medium, and appear to be decoupled from the stripped ISM. We propose that diffuse molecular gas is directly stripped but giant molecular cloud (GMC) density gas is not directly stripped, and so decouples from lower density stripped gas. However, GMCs become effectively stripped on short timescales. We also find morphological and kinematic signatures of ram pressure compression of molecular gas in a region of intense star formation on the leading side at
r
∼ 3.5 kpc. We propose that the compressed and stripped zones represent different evolutionary stages of the ram pressure interaction, and that feedback from star formation in the compressed zone facilitates the effective stripping of GMCs by making the gas cycle rapidly to a lower density diffuse state.
ABSTRACT
We report a remarkable overdensity of high-redshift submillimetre galaxies (SMG), 4–7 times the background, around a statistically complete sample of twelve 250 μm selected galaxies at z = ...0.35, which were targeted by ALMA in a study of gas tracers. This overdensity is consistent with the effect of lensing by the haloes hosting the target z = 0.35 galaxies. The angular cross-correlation in this sample is consistent with statistical measures of this effect made using larger sub-mm samples. The magnitude of the overdensity as a function of radial separation is consistent with intermediate scale lensing by haloes of the order of $7\times 10^{13}\mbox{ $\rm M_{\odot }$ }$, which should host one or possibly two bright galaxies and several smaller satellites. This is supported by observational evidence of interaction with satellites in four out of the six fields with SMG, and membership of a spectroscopically defined group for a fifth. We also investigate the impact of these SMG on the reported Herschel fluxes of the z = 0.35 galaxies, as they produce significant contamination in the 350 and 500 μm Herschel bands. The higher than random incidence of these boosting events implies a significantly larger bias in the sub-mm colours of Herschel sources associated with z < 0.7 galaxies than has previously been assumed, with fboost = 1.13, 1.26, 1.44 at 250, 350, and 500 μm . This could have implications for studies of spectral energy distributions, source counts, and luminosity functions based on Herschel samples at z = 0.2–0.7.
We have modelled Atacama Large Millimetre/sub-millimetre Array (ALMA) long baseline imaging of the strong gravitational lens system H-ATLAS J090311.6+003906 (SDP.81). We have reconstructed the ...distribution of band 6 and 7 continuum emission in the z = 3.042 source and determined its kinematic properties by reconstructing CO(5–4) and CO(8–7) line emission in bands 4 and 6. The continuum imaging reveals a highly non-uniform distribution of dust with clumps on scales of ∼200 pc. In contrast, the CO line emission shows a relatively smooth, disc-like velocity field which is well fitted by a rotating disc model with an inclination angle of (40 ± 5)° and an asymptotic rotation velocity of 320 km s−1. The inferred dynamical mass within 1.5 kpc is (3.5 ± 0.5) × 1010 M⊙ which is comparable to the total molecular gas masses of (2.7 ± 0.5) × 1010 M⊙ and (3.5 ± 0.6) × 1010 M⊙ from the dust continuum emission and CO emission, respectively. Our new reconstruction of the lensed Hubble Space Telescope near-infrared emission shows two objects which appear to be interacting, with the rotating disc of gas and dust revealed by ALMA distinctly offset from the near-infrared emission. The clumpy nature of the dust and a low value of the Toomre parameter of Q ∼ 0.3 suggest that the disc is in a state of collapse. We estimate a star formation rate in the disc of 470 ± 80 M⊙ yr−1 with an efficiency ∼65 times greater than typical low-redshift galaxies. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence that the most infrared luminous, dust obscured galaxies in the high-redshift Universe represent a population of merger-induced starbursts.
Energetic feedback by active galactic nuclei (AGNs) plays an important evolutionary role in the regulation of star formation on galactic scales. However, the effects of this feedback as a function of ...redshift and galaxy properties such as mass, environment, and cold gas content remain poorly understood. The broad frequency coverage (1 to 116 GHz), high sensitivity (up to ten times higher than the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array), and superb angular resolution (maximum baselines of at least a few hundred kilometers) of the proposed next-generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) are uniquely poised to revolutionize our understanding of AGNs and their role in galaxy evolution. Here, we provide an overview of the science related to AGN feedback that will be possible in the ngVLA era and present new continuum ngVLA imaging simulations of resolved radio jets spanning a wide range of intrinsic extents. We also consider key computational challenges and discuss exciting opportunities for multiwavelength synergy with other next-generation instruments, such as the Square Kilometer Array and the James Webb Space Telescope. The unique combination of high-resolution, large collecting area, and wide frequency range will enable significant advancements in our understanding of the effects of jet-driven feedback on sub-galactic scales, particularly for sources with extents of a few parsec to a few kiloparsec, such as young and/or lower-power radio AGNs, AGNs hosted by low-mass galaxies, radio jets that are interacting strongly with the interstellar medium of the host galaxy, and AGNs at high redshift.
We present the properties of the first 250 μm blind sample of nearby galaxies (15 < D < 46 Mpc) containing 42 objects from the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey. Herschel's ...sensitivity probes the faint end of the dust luminosity function for the first time, spanning a range of stellar mass (7.4 < M
⋆ < 11.3 log10 M⊙), star formation activity (−11.8 < SSFR < −8.9 log10 yr−1), gas fraction (3–96 per cent), and colour (0.6 < FUV–K
S < 7.0 mag). The median cold dust temperature is 14.6 K, colder than in the Herschel Reference Survey (18.5 K) and Planck Early Release Compact Source Catalogue (17.7 K). The mean dust-to-stellar mass ratio in our sample is higher than these surveys by factors of 3.7 and 1.8, with a dust mass volume density of (3.7 ± 0.7) × 105 M⊙ Mpc−3. Counter-intuitively, we find that the more dust rich a galaxy, the lower its UV attenuation. Over half of our dust-selected sample are very blue in FUV–K
S colour, with irregular and/or highly flocculent morphology; these galaxies account for only 6 per cent of the sample's stellar mass but contain over 35 per cent of the dust mass. They are the most actively star-forming galaxies in the sample, with the highest gas fractions and lowest UV attenuation. They also appear to be in an early stage of converting their gas into stars, providing valuable insights into the chemical evolution of young galaxies.
ABSTRACT
We present the dust mass function (DMF) of 15 750 galaxies with redshift $z$ < 0.1, drawn from the overlapping area of the GAMA and H-ATLAS surveys. The DMF is derived using the density ...corrected Vmax method, where we estimate Vmax using: (i) the normal photometric selection limit (pVmax) and (ii) a bivariate brightness distribution (BBD) technique, which accounts for two selection effects. We fit the data with a Schechter function, and find $M^{*}=(4.65 \pm 0.18)\times 10^{7}\,h^2_{70}\, \mathrm{ M}_{\odot }$, α = (−1.22 ± 0.01), $\phi ^{*}=(6.26 \pm 0.28)\times 10^{-3}\,h^3_{70}\,\rm Mpc^{-3}\,dex^{-1}$. The resulting dust mass density parameter integrated down to 104 M⊙ is Ωd = (1.11 ± 0.02) × 10−6 which implies the mass fraction of baryons in dust is $f_{m_\mathrm{ b}}=(2.40\pm 0.04)\times 10^{-5}$; cosmic variance adds an extra 7–17 per cent uncertainty to the quoted statistical errors. Our measurements have fewer galaxies with high dust mass than predicted by semi-analytic models. This is because the models include too much dust in high stellar mass galaxies. Conversely, our measurements find more galaxies with high dust mass than predicted by hydrodynamical cosmological simulations. This is likely to be from the long time-scales for grain growth assumed in the models. We calculate DMFs split by galaxy type and find dust mass densities of Ωd = (0.88 ± 0.03) × 10−6 and Ωd = (0.060 ± 0.005) × 10−6 for late types and early types, respectively. Comparing to the equivalent galaxy stellar mass functions (GSMF) we find that the DMF for late types is well matched by the GSMF scaled by (8.07 ± 0.35) × 10−4.
We present ALMA CO (1−0) observations toward the dust lane of the nearest elliptical and radio galaxy, NGC 5128 (Centaurus A), with high angular resolution (∼1″, or 18 pc), including information from ...large to small spatial scales and total flux. We find a total molecular gas mass of 1.6 × 109 M and reveal the presence of filamentary components more extended than previously seen, up to a radius of 4 kpc. We find that the global star formation rate is ∼1 M yr−1, which yields a star formation efficiency (SFE) of 0.6 Gyr−1 (depletion time τ = 1.5 Gyr), similar to those in disk galaxies. We show the most detailed view to date (40 pc resolution) of the relation between molecular gas and star formation within the stellar component of an elliptical galaxy, from a scale of several kiloparsecs to the circumnuclear region close to the powerful radio jet. Although on average the SFEs are similar to those of spiral galaxies, the circumnuclear disk (CND) presents SFEs of 0.3 Gyr−1, lower by a factor of 4 than the outer disk. The low SFE in the CND is in contrast to the high SFEs found in the literature for the circumnuclear regions of some nearby disk galaxies with nuclear activity, probably as a result of larger shear motions and longer active galactic nucleus feedback. The higher SFEs in the outer disk suggest that only central molecular gas or filaments with sufficient density and strong shear motions will remain in ∼1 Gyr, which will later result in the compact molecular distributions and low SFEs usually seen in other giant ellipticals with cold gas.
ABSTRACT
We present Atacama Large Millimetre Array observations of a small but statistically complete sample of 12 250-μm-selected galaxies at z = 0.35 designed to measure their dust submillimeter ...continuum emission as well as their $\rm {^{12}CO(1-0)}$ and atomic carbon C i(3P1−3P0) spectral lines. This is the first sample of galaxies with global measures of all three H2-mass tracers and that shows star formation rates (4–26 $\rm M_{\odot}$ yr−1) and infrared luminosities ($1\!-\!6\times 10^{11}\,\rm L_{\odot}$) typical of star-forming galaxies in their era. We find a surprising diversity of morphology and kinematic structure; one third of the sample have evidence for interaction with nearby smaller galaxies, several sources have disjoint dust and gas morphology. Moreover, two galaxies have very high $L^{\prime }_{\rm C\,{\small I}}$ / $L^{\prime }_{\rm {CO}}$ ratios for their global molecular gas reservoirs; if confirmed, such extreme intensity ratios in a sample of dust-selected, massive star-forming galaxies present a challenge to our understanding of interstellar medium. Finally, we use the emission of the three molecular gas tracers, to determine the carbon abundance, $\rm {X_{C\,{\small I}}}$ , and CO–$\rm {H_2}$ conversion αCO in our sample, using a weak prior that the gas-to-dust ratio is similar to that of the Milky Way for these massive and metal-rich galaxies. Using a likelihood method that simultaneously uses all three gas tracer measurements, we find mean values and errors on the mean of $\langle\alpha _{\rm {CO}}\rangle = 3.0\pm 0.5\, \rm {M}_{\odot }\, (\rm{K}\, \rm{kms}^{-1}\, \rm{pc}^2)^{-1}$ and $\langle \rm{X}_{\rm{CI}} \rangle =1.6\pm 0.1\times 10^{-5}$ (or $\alpha _{\rm{CI}} = 18.8\,\rm {M}_{\odot }\, (\rm{K}\, \rm{kms}^{-1}\, \rm{pc}^2)^{-1}$) and $\delta _{\rm {GDR}} = 128\pm 16$ (or $\alpha _{850} = 5.9\times 10^{12}\, \rm {W}\, \rm{Hz}^{-1}\,\rm {M}_{\odot }\,^{-1}$), where our starting assumption is that these metal-rich galaxies have an average gas-to-dust ratio similar to that of the Milky Way centred on $\rm{\delta} _{\rm {GDR}} =135$.
ABSTRACT
We have carried out the first spatially resolved investigation of the multiphase interstellar medium (ISM) at high redshift, using the z = 4.24 strongly lensed submillimetre galaxy ...H-ATLASJ142413.9+022303 (ID141). We present high-resolution (down to ∼350 pc) ALMA observations in dust continuum emission and in the CO(7–6), $\rm H_2O (2_{1,1} - 2_{0,2})$, C i (1–0), and C i (2–1) lines, the latter two allowing us to spatially resolve the cool phase of the ISM for the first time. Our modelling of the kinematics reveals that the system appears to be dominated by a rotationally-supported gas disc with evidence of a nearby perturber. We find that the C i (1–0) line has a very different distribution to the other lines, showing the existence of a reservoir of cool gas that might have been missed in studies of other galaxies. We have estimated the mass of the ISM using four different tracers, always obtaining an estimate in the range of $\rm 3.2{\!-\!}3.8 \times 10^{11}\ M_{\odot }$, significantly higher than our dynamical mass estimate of $\rm 0.8{\!-\!}1.3 \times 10^{11}\ M_{\odot }$. We suggest that this conflict and other similar conflicts reported in the literature is because the gas-to-tracer ratios are ≃4 times lower than the Galactic values used to calibrate the ISM in high-redshift galaxies. We demonstrate that this could result from a top-heavy initial mass function and strong chemical evolution. Using a variety of quantitative indicators, we show that, extreme though it is at z = 4.24, ID141 will likely join the population of quiescent galaxies that appears in the Universe at z ∼ 3.
ABSTRACT
We combine data from ALMA and MUSE to study the resolved (∼300 pc scale) star formation relation (star formation rate, SFR, versus molecular gas surface density) in cluster galaxies. Our ...sample consists of nine Fornax cluster galaxies, including spirals, ellipticals, and dwarfs, covering a stellar mass range of ∼108.8–1011 M⊙. CO(1-0) and extinction corrected Hα were used as tracers for the molecular gas mass and SFR, respectively. We compare our results with Kennicutt and Bigiel et al. Furthermore, we create depletion time maps to reveal small-scale variations in individual galaxies. We explore these further in FCC290, using the ‘uncertainty principle for star formation’ (Kruijssen & Longmore) to estimate molecular cloud lifetimes, which we find to be short (<10 Myr) in this galaxy. Galaxy-averaged depletion times are compared with other parameters such as stellar mass and cluster-centric distance. We find that the star formation relation in the Fornax cluster is close to those from Kennicutt and Bigiel et al., but overlaps mostly with the shortest depletion times predicted by Bigiel et al. This slight decrease in depletion time is mostly driven by dwarf galaxies with disturbed molecular gas reservoirs close to the virial radius. In FCC90, a dwarf galaxy with a molecular gas tail, we find that depletion times are a factor ≳10 higher in its tail than in its stellar body.
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