International audienceMassive present-day early-type (elliptical and lenticular) galaxies probably gained the bulk of their stellar mass and heavy elements through intense, dust-enshrouded starbursts--that is, increased rates of star formation--in the most massive dark-matter haloes at early epochs. However, it remains unknown how soon after the Big Bang massive starburst progenitors exist. The measured redshift (z) distribution of dusty, massive starbursts has long been suspected to be biased low in z owing to selection effects, as confirmed by recent findings of systems with redshifts as high as ~5 (refs 2-4). Here we report the identification of a massive starburst galaxy at z = 6.34 through a submillimetre colour-selection technique. We unambiguously determined the redshift from a suite of molecular and atomic fine-structure cooling lines. These measurements reveal a hundred billion solar masses of highly excited, chemically evolved interstellar medium in this galaxy, which constitutes at least 40 per cent of the baryonic mass. A 'maximum starburst' converts the gas into stars at a rate more than 2,000 times that of the Milky Way, a rate among the highest observed at any epoch. Despite the overall downturn in cosmic star formation towards the highest redshifts, it seems that environments mature enough to form the most massive, intense starbursts existed at least as early as 880 million years after the Big Ban

We have detected the 158 μm [CII] line from 12 galaxies at z~1-2. This is the first survey of this important starformation tracer at redshifts covering the epoch of maximum star-formation in the Universe and quadruples the number of reported high z [CII] detections. The line is very luminous, between <0.024-0.65% of the far-infrared continuum luminosity of our sources, and arises from PDRs on molecular cloud surfaces. An exception is PKS 0215+015, where half of the [CII] emission could arise from XDRs near the central AGN. The L [CII] /L FIR ratio in our star-formation-dominated systems is ~8 times larger than that of our AGN-dominated systems. Therefore this ratio selects for star-formationdominated systems. Furthermore, the L [CII] /L FIR and L [CII] /L (CO(1-0)) ratios in our starforming galaxies and nearby starburst galaxies are the same, so that luminous starforming galaxies at earlier epochs (z~1-2) appear to be scaled up versions of local starbursts entailing kilo-parsec-scale starbursts. Most of the FIR and [CII] radiation from our AGN-dominated sample (excepting PKS 0215+015) also arises from kpc scale starformation, but with far-UV radiation fields ~8 times more intense than in our star-formationdominated sample. We speculate that the onset of AGN activity stimulates large-scale star-formation activity within AGN-dominated systems. This idea is supported by the relatively strong [OIII] line emission, indicating very young stars, that was recently observed in high z composite AGN/starburst systems. Our results confirm the utility of the [CII] line, and in particular, the L [CII] /L (FIR) and L [CII] /L CO(1-0) ratios as a tracers of star-formation in galaxies at high redshifts.

Spitzer IRAC fluxes were measured from a combination of programs 20070 (COSMOS) , 40801, 50310 and 61043 (SEDS) in the COSMOS field. The data for program 61043 were obtained during the Spitzer warm mission and only the data obtained in January 2010 were used for this paper. The average exposure time at the position of the proto-cluster is 6.3 hours per pixel.The data reduction procedure closely follows that used for the COSMOS data (program 20070) 29 . We began our reduction using the corrected basic calibrated data (cBCD) provided by the Spitzer Science Center. The cBCDs were background matched using the contributed afrl_bcd_overlap IDL procedure, and then combined into a mosaic using the MOPEX software package. Cosmic rays, asteroids, and other transient artefacts were removed using the MOPEX temporal and box outlier modules. The images were combined using a drizzle interpolation with a PIXFRAC of 0.65 and an exposure time weighted co-addition. The resulting image has a 1 sigma, background limited, point source sensitivity of 38 nJy and 44 nJy in 3.6μm and 4.5μm respectively for the region around the proto-cluster.Fluxes were measured by fitting an empirically measured point spread function (PSF) at the source position. Compact sources within 5 arc-minutes of the proto-cluster were used to construct the PSF model. For un-confused sources the PSF fit fluxes agreed well with 3.8" diameter aperture photometry measurements corrected to total flux via a statistical aperture correction. The new IRAC fluxes for the sources are given in Supplementary Table 1.

Three billion years after the big bang (at redshift z = 2), half of the most massive galaxies were already old, quiescent systems with little to no residual star formation and extremely compact with stellar mass densities at least an order of magnitude larger than in low redshift ellipticals, their descendants. Little is known about how they formed, but their evolved, dense stellar populations suggest formation within intense, compact starbursts 1-2 Gyr earlier (at 3 < z < 6). Simulations show that gas-rich major mergers can give rise to such starbursts which produce dense remnants. Sub-millimeter selected galaxies (SMGs) are prime examples of intense, gas-rich, starbursts. With a new, representative spectroscopic sample of compact quiescent galaxies at z = 2 and a statistically wellunderstood sample of SMGs, we show that z = 3 − 6 SMGs are consistent with being the progenitors of z = 2 quiescent galaxies, matching their formation redshifts and their distributions of sizes, stellar masses and internal velocities. Assuming an evolutionary connection, their space densities also match if the mean duty cycle of SMG starbursts is 42 +40 −29 Myr (consistent with independent estimates), which indicates that the bulk of stars in these massive galaxies were formed in a major, early surge of star-formation. These results suggests a coherent picture of the formation history of the most massive galaxies in the universe, from their initial burst of violent star-formation through their appearance as high stellar-density galaxy cores and to their ultimate fate as giant ellipticals.

We present 12 CO(J=1→0) observations of the high-redshift quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) BR 1202-0725 (z = 4.69), PSS J2322+1944 (z = 4.12), and APM 08279+5255 (z = 3.91) using the NRAO Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and the MPIfR Effelsberg 100 m telescope. We detect, for the first time, the CO ground-level transition in BR 1202-0725. For PSS J2322+1944 and APM 08279+5255, our observations result in line fluxes that are consistent with previous NRAO Very Large Array (VLA) observations, but they reveal the full line profiles. We report a typical lensing-corrected velocity-integrated intrinsic 12 CO(J=1→0) line luminosity of L ′ CO = 5 × 10 10 K km s −1 pc 2 and a typical total H 2 mass of M (H 2 ) = 4 × 10 10 M ⊙ for the sources in our sample. The CO/FIR luminosity ratios of these high-z sources follow the same trend as seen for low-z galaxies, leading to a combined solution of log(L FIR ) = (1.39 ± 0.05) × log(L CO ) − 1.76. It has previously been suggested that the molecular gas reservoirs in some quasar host galaxies may exhibit luminous, extended 12 CO(J=1→0) components that are not observed in the higher-J CO transitions. Utilizing the line profiles and the total intensities of our observations and large velocity gradient (LVG) models based on previous results for higher-J CO transitions, we derive that emission from all CO transitions is described well by a single gas component where all molecular gas is concentrated in a compact nuclear region. Thus, our observations and models show no indication of a luminous extended, low surface brightness molecular gas component in any of the high-redshift QSOs in our sample. If such extended components exist, their contribution to the overall luminosity is limited to at most 30%.

Though half of cosmic starlight is absorbed by dust and reradiated at long wavelengths (3µm-3 mm), constraints on the infrared through millimeter galaxy luminosity function (the 'IRLF') are poor in comparison to the rest-frame ultraviolet and optical galaxy luminosity function, particularly at z > ∼ 2.5. Here we present a backward evolution model for interpreting number counts, redshift distributions, and cross-band flux density correlations in the infrared and submillimeter sky, from 70µm-2 mm, using a model for the IRLF out to the epoch of reionization. Mock submillimeter maps are generated by injecting sources according to the prescribed IRLF and flux densities drawn from model spectral energy distributions that mirror the distribution of SEDs observed in 0 < z < 5 dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs). We explore two extreme hypothetical case-studies: a dust-poor early Universe model, where DSFGs contribute negligibly (<10%) to the integrated star-formation rate density at z > 4, and an alternate dust-rich early Universe model, where DSFGs dominate ∼90% of z > 4 star-formation. We find that current submm/mm datasets do not clearly rule out either of these extreme models. We suggest that future surveys at 2 mm will be crucial to measuring the IRLF beyond z ∼ 4. The model framework developed in this paper serves as a unique tool for the interpretation of multiwavelength IR/submm extragalactic datasets and will enable more refined constraints on the IRLF than can be made from direct measurements of individual galaxies' integrated dust emission.

Panchromatic observations of the best candidate HyLIRG from the widest Herschel extragalactic imaging survey have led to the discovery of at least four intrinsically luminous z = 2.41 galaxies across a ≈100-kpc region -a cluster of starbursting proto-ellipticals. Via sub-arcsecond interferometric imaging we have measured accurate gas and star-formation surface densities. The two brightest galaxies span ∼3 kpc FWHM in submm/radio continuum and CO J = 4−3, and double that in CO J = 1−0. The broad CO line is due partly to the multitude of constituent galaxies and partly to large rotational velocities in two counter-rotating gas disks -a scenario predicted to lead to the most intense starbursts, which will therefore come in pairs. The disks have M dyn of several ×10 11 M ⊙ , and gas fractions of ∼ 40%. Velocity dispersions are modest so the disks are unstable, potentially on scales commensurate with their radii: these galaxies are undergoing extreme bursts of star formation, not confined to their nuclei, at close to the Eddington limit. Their specific star-formation rates place them > ∼ 5× above the main sequence, which supposedly comprises large gas disks like these. Their high star-formation efficiencies are difficult to reconcile with a simple volumetric star-formation law. N-body and dark matter simulations suggest this system is the progenitor of a B(inary)-type ≈ 10 14.6 -M ⊙ cluster.

We present the first results from the Mapping Obscuration to Reionization with ALMA (MORA) survey, the largest Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) blank-field contiguous survey to date (184 arcmin 2 ) and the only at 2 mm to search for dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs). We use the 13 sources detected above 5σ to estimate the first ALMA galaxy number counts at this wavelength. These number counts are then combined with the state-of-the-art galaxy number counts at 1.2 and 3 mm and with a backward evolution model to place constraints on the evolution of the IR luminosity function and dust-obscured star formation in the past 13 billion years. Our results suggest a steep redshift evolution on the space density of DSFGs and confirm the flattening of the IR luminosity function at faint luminosities, with a slope of a = --+ 0.42 LF 0.04 0.02 . We conclude that the dust-obscured component, which peaks at z ≈ 2-2.5, has dominated the cosmic history of star formation for the past ∼12 billion years, back to z ∼ 4. At z = 5, the dust-obscured star formation is estimated to be ∼35% of the total star formation rate density and decreases to 25%-20% at z = 6-7, implying a minor contribution of dustenshrouded star formation in the first billion years of the universe. With the dust-obscured star formation history constrained up to the end of the epoch of reionization, our results provide a benchmark to test galaxy formation models, to study the galaxy mass assembly history, and to understand the dust and metal enrichment of the universe at early times.