We present new measurements of the cosmic cold molecular gas evolution out to redshift 6 based on systematic mining of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) public archive in the ...COSMOS deep field (A3COSMOS). Our A3COSMOS data set contains ∼700 galaxies (0.3 z 6) with high-confidence ALMA detections in the (sub)millimeter continuum and multiwavelength spectral energy distributions. Multiple gas mass calibration methods are compared, and biases in band conversions (from observed ALMA wavelength to rest-frame Rayleigh-Jeans tail continuum) have been tested. Combining our A3COSMOS sample with ∼1000 CO-observed galaxies at 0 z 4 (75% at z < 0.1), we parameterize galaxies' molecular gas depletion time ( ) and molecular gas to stellar mass ratio ( ) each as a function of the stellar mass ( ), offset from the star-forming main sequence ( ) and cosmic age (or redshift). Our proposed functional form provides a statistically better fit to current data (than functional forms in the literature) and implies a "downsizing" effect (i.e., more-massive galaxies evolve earlier than less-massive ones) and "mass quenching" (gas consumption slows down with cosmic time for massive galaxies but speeds up for low-mass ones). Adopting galaxy stellar mass functions and applying our function for gas mass calculation, we for the first time infer the cosmic cold molecular gas density evolution out to redshift 6 and find agreement with CO blind surveys as well as semianalytic modeling. These together provide a coherent picture of cold molecular gas, star formation rate, and stellar mass evolution in galaxies across cosmic time.
The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) Large Program to INvestigate CII at Early times (ALPINE) targets the CII 158
μ
m line and the far-infrared continuum in 118 spectroscopically confirmed ...star-forming galaxies between
z
= 4.4 and
z
= 5.9. It represents the first large CII statistical sample built in this redshift range. We present details regarding the data processing and the construction of the catalogs. We detected 23 of our targets in the continuum. To derive accurate infrared luminosities and obscured star formation rates (SFRs), we measured the conversion factor from the ALMA 158
μ
m rest-frame dust continuum luminosity to the total infrared luminosity (
L
IR
) after constraining the dust spectral energy distribution by stacking a photometric sample similar to ALPINE in ancillary single-dish far-infrared data. We found that our continuum detections have a median
L
IR
of 4.4 × 10
11
L
⊙
. We also detected 57 additional continuum sources in our ALMA pointings. They are at a lower redshift than the ALPINE targets, with a mean photometric redshift of 2.5 ± 0.2. We measured the 850
μ
m number counts between 0.35 and 3.5 mJy, thus improving the current interferometric constraints in this flux density range. We found a slope break in the number counts around 3 mJy with a shallower slope below this value. More than 40% of the cosmic infrared background is emitted by sources brighter than 0.35 mJy. Finally, we detected the CII line in 75 of our targets. Their median CII luminosity is 4.8 × 10
8
L
⊙
and their median full width at half maximum is 252 km s
−1
. After measuring the mean obscured SFR in various CII luminosity bins by stacking ALPINE continuum data, we find a good agreement between our data and the local and predicted SFR–
L
CII
relations.
Using the IRAM NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA), we conducted a program to measure redshifts for 13 bright galaxies detected in the
Herschel
Astrophysical Large Area Survey with
S
500
μ
m
...≥ 80 mJy. We report reliable spectroscopic redshifts for 12 individual sources, which are derived from scans of the 3 and 2 mm bands, covering up to 31 GHz in each band, and are based on the detection of at least two emission lines. The spectroscopic redshifts are in the range 2.08 <
z
< 4.05 with a median value of
z
= 2.9 ± 0.6. The sources are unresolved or barely resolved on scales of 10 kpc. In one field, two galaxies with different redshifts were detected. In two cases the sources are found to be binary galaxies with projected distances of ∼140 kpc. The linewidths of the sources are large, with a mean value for the full width at half maximum of 700 ± 300 km s
−1
and a median of 800 km s
−1
. We analyze the nature of the sources with currently available ancillary data to determine if they are lensed or hyper-luminous (
L
FIR
> 10
13
L
⊙
) galaxies. We also present a reanalysis of the spectral energy distributions including the continuum flux densities measured at 3 and 2 mm to derive the overall properties of the sources. Future prospects based on these efficient measurements of redshifts of high-
z
galaxies using NOEMA are outlined, including a comprehensive survey of all the brightest
Herschel
galaxies.
We test the use of long-wavelength dust continuum emission as a molecular gas tracer at high redshift, via a unique sample of a dozen z ∼ 2 galaxies with observations of both the dust continuum and ...CO(1−0) line emission (obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array and Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, respectively). Our work is motivated by recent high-redshift studies that measure molecular gas masses ( ) via a calibration of the rest-frame 850 m luminosity ( ) against the CO(1−0)-derived of star-forming galaxies. We therefore test whether this method is valid for the types of high-redshift, star-forming galaxies to which it has been applied. We recover a clear correlation between the rest-frame 850 m luminosity, inferred from the single-band, long-wavelength flux, and the CO(1−0) line luminosity, consistent with the samples used to perform the 850 m calibration. The molecular gas masses, derived from , agree to within a factor of two with those derived from CO(1−0). We show that this factor of two uncertainty can arise from the values of the dust emissivity index and temperature that need to be assumed in order to extrapolate from the observed frequency to the rest-frame at 850 m. The extrapolation to 850 m therefore has a smaller effect on the accuracy of derived via single-band dust-continuum observations than the assumed CO(1−0)-to- conversion factor. We therefore conclude that single-band observations of long-wavelength dust emission can be used to reliably constrain the molecular gas masses of massive, star-forming galaxies at z 2.
ABSTRACT We present an analysis of a deep (1 = 13 Jy) cosmological 1.2 mm continuum map based on ASPECS, the ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. In the 1 arcmin2 covered by ...ASPECS we detect nine sources at significance at 1.2 mm. Our ALMA-selected sample has a median redshift of , with only one galaxy detected at z > 2 within the survey area. This value is significantly lower than that found in millimeter samples selected at a higher flux density cutoff and similar frequencies. Most galaxies have specific star formation rates (SFRs) similar to that of main-sequence galaxies at the same epoch, and we find median values of stellar mass and SFRs of and yr−1, respectively. Using the dust emission as a tracer for the interstellar medium (ISM) mass, we derive depletion times that are typically longer than 300 Myr, and we find molecular gas fractions ranging from ∼0.1 to 1.0. As noted by previous studies, these values are lower than those using CO-based ISM estimates by a factor of ∼2. The 1 mm number counts (corrected for fidelity and completeness) are in agreement with previous studies that were typically restricted to brighter sources. With our individual detections only, we recover 55% 4% of the extragalactic background light (EBL) at 1.2 mm measured by the Planck satellite, and we recover 80% 7% of this EBL if we include the bright end of the number counts and additional detections from stacking. The stacked contribution is dominated by galaxies at , with stellar masses of (1-3) × 1010 M . For the first time, we are able to characterize the population of galaxies that dominate the EBL at 1.2 mm.
We examine the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) properties of 10 C iiλ158 m-detected galaxies at z ∼ 5.5 in COSMOS using new Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3 near-infrared imaging. Together with ...pre-existing 158 m continuum and C ii line measurements by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, we study their dust attenuation properties on the IRX-β diagram, which connects the total dust emission ( ) to the line-of-sight dust column (∝ β). We find systematically bluer UV continuum spectral slopes (β) compared to previous low-resolution ground-based measurements, which relieves some of the tension between models of dust attenuation and observations at high redshifts. While most of the galaxies are consistent with local starburst or Small Magellanic Cloud-like dust properties, we find galaxies with low IRX values and a large range in β that cannot be explained by models of a uniform dust distribution well mixed with stars. A stacking analysis of Keck/DEIMOS optical spectra indicates that these galaxies are metal-poor with young stellar populations that could significantly alter their spatial dust distribution.
Ultra-deep radio surveys are an invaluable probe of dust-obscured star formation, but require a clear understanding of the relative contribution from radio active galactic nuclei (AGNs) to be used to ...their fullest potential. We study the composition of the Jy radio population detected in the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array COSMOS-XS survey based on a sample of 1540 sources detected at 3 GHz over an area of ∼350 arcmin2. This ultra-deep survey consists of a single pointing in the well-studied COSMOS field at both 3 and 10 GHz and reaches rms sensitivities of 0.53 and 0.41 Jy beam−1, respectively. We find multiwavelength counterparts for 97% of radio sources, based on a combination of near-UV/optical to sub-millimeter data, and through a stacking analysis at optical/near-IR wavelengths we further show that the sources lacking such counterparts are likely to be high-redshift in nature (typical z ∼ 4−5). Utilizing the multiwavelength data over COSMOS, we identify AGNs through a variety of diagnostics and find these to make up 23.2 1.3% of our sample, with the remainder constituting uncontaminated star-forming galaxies. However, more than half of the AGNs exhibit radio emission consistent with originating from star formation, with only 8.8 0.8% of radio sources showing a clear excess in radio luminosity. At flux densities of ∼30 Jy at 3 GHz, the fraction of star formation-powered sources reaches ∼90%, and this fraction is consistent with unity at even lower flux densities. Overall, our findings imply that ultra-deep radio surveys such as COSMOS-XS constitute a highly effective means of obtaining clean samples of star formation-powered radio sources.
ALMA 870 m continuum imaging has uncovered a population of blends of multiple dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) in sources originally detected with the Herschel Space Observatory. However, their ...pairwise separations are much smaller than what is found by ALMA follow-up of other single-dish surveys or expected from theoretical simulations. Using ALMA and the Very Large Array, we have targeted three of these systems to confirm whether the multiple 870 m continuum sources lie at the same redshift, successfully detecting 12CO (J = 3-2) and 12CO (J = 1-0) lines and being able to confirm that in the three cases all the multiple DSFGs are likely physically associated within the same structure. Therefore, we report the discovery of two new gas-rich dusty protocluster cores (HELAISS02, z = 2.171 0.004; HXMM20, z = 2.602 0.002). The third target is located in the well-known COSMOS overdensity at z = 2.51 (named CL J1001+0220 in the literature), for which we do not find any new secure CO (1-0) detection, although some of its members show only tentative detections and require further confirmation. From the gas, dust, and stellar properties of the two new protocluster cores, we find very large molecular gas fractions yet low stellar masses, pushing the sources above the main sequence (MS), while not enhancing their star formation efficiency. We suggest that the sources might be newly formed galaxies migrating to the MS. The properties of the three systems compared to each other and to field galaxies may suggest a different evolutionary stage between systems.
The most intensively star-forming galaxies are extremely luminous at far-infrared (FIR) wavelengths, highly obscured at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths, and lie at z ≥ 1-3. We present a programme ...of FIR spectroscopic observations with the SPIRE FTS, as well as photometric observations with PACS, both on board Herschel, towards a sample of 45 gravitationally lensed, dusty starbursts across z ∼ 1-3.6. In total, we detected 27 individual lines down to 3 σ, including nine C II 158 μm lines with confirmed spectroscopic redshifts, five possible C II lines consistent with their FIR photometric redshifts, and in some individual sources a few O III 88 μm, O III 52 μm, O I 145 μm, O I 63 μm, N II 122 μm and OH 119 μm (in absorption) lines. To derive the typical physical properties of the gas in the sample, we stack all spectra weighted by their intrinsic luminosity and by their 500μm flux densities, with the spectra scaled to a common redshift. In the stacked spectra, we detect emission lines of C II 158 μm, N II 122 μm, O III 88 μm, O III 52 μm, O I 63 μm and the absorption doublet of OH at 119 μm, at high fidelity. We find that the average electron densities traced by the N II and O III lines are higher than the average values in local star-forming galaxies and ULIRGs, using the same tracers. From the N II/C II and O I/C II ratios, we find that the C II emission is likely dominated by the photodominated regions (PDR), instead of by ionized gas or large-scale shocks.
We report our new observations of redshifted carbon monoxide emission from six z ~ 6 quasars, using the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer. CO (6-5) or (5-4) line emission was detected in all six ...sources. Together with two other previous CO detections, these observations provide unique constraints on the molecular gas emission properties in these quasar systems close to the end of the cosmic re-ionization. Complementary results are also presented for low-J CO lines observed at the Green Bank Telescope and the Very Large Array, and dust continuum from five of these sources with the SHARC-II bolometer camera at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. We then present a study of the molecular gas properties in our combined sample of eight CO-detected quasars at z ~ 6. The detections of high-order CO line emission in these objects indicates the presence of highly excited molecular gas, with estimated masses on the order of 1010 M sun within the quasar host galaxies. No significant difference is found in the gas mass and CO line width distributions between our z ~ 6 quasars and samples of CO-detected 1.4 <= z <= 5 quasars and submillimeter galaxies. Most of the CO-detected quasars at z ~ 6 follow the far-infrared-CO luminosity relationship defined by actively star-forming galaxies at low and high redshifts. This suggests that ongoing star formation in their hosts contributes significantly to the dust heating at FIR wavelengths. The result is consistent with the picture of galaxy formation co-eval with supermassive black hole (SMBH) accretion in the earliest quasar-host systems. We investigate the black hole-bulge relationships of our quasar sample, using the CO dynamics as a tracer for the dynamical mass of the quasar host. The median estimated black hole-bulge mass ratio is about 15 times higher than the present-day value of ~0.0014. This places important constraints on the formation and evolution of the most massive SMBH-spheroidal host systems at the highest redshift.