A kiloparsec-scale hyper-starburst in a quasar host less than 1 gigayear after the Big Bang

Walter, Fabian; Riechers, Dominik A.; Cox, P.; Neri, R.; Carilli, C. L.; Bertoldi, F.; Weiß, A.; Maiolino, R.

doi:10.1038/nature07681

Cited by 237 publications

(335 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(44 reference statements)

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“…The CII line has been detected by Walter et al (2009), and the data are consistent with a 1kpc-scale starburst, of SF density 1000M /yr/kpc 2 . Surprisingly HCN has not been detected in this source, although HCN appears better correlated to star formation than CO (Gao & Solomon 2004).…”

Section: F Combessupporting

confidence: 57%

Molecular Gas in Galaxies at all Redshifts

Combes¹

2010

Proc. IAU

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Abstract. I review some recent results about the molecular content of galaxies, obtained essentially from the CO lines, but also dense tracers, or the dust continuum emission. New results have been obtained on molecular cloud physics, and their efficiency to form stars, shedding light on the Kennicutt-Schmidt law as a function of surface density and galaxy type. Large progress has been made on galaxy at moderate and high redshifts, allowing to interprete the star formation history and star formation efficiency as a function of gas content, or galaxy evolution. In massive galaxies, the gas fraction was higher in the past, and galaxy disks were more unstable and more turbulent. ALMA observations will allow the study of more normal galaxies at high z with higher spatial resolution and sensitivity.Keywords. galaxies: general, galaxies: high-redshift, galaxies: evolution, ISM: molecule, galaxies: ISM, galaxies: spiral, galaxies: starburst, galaxies: structure Nearby galaxiesA new survey (HERACLES) has been completed with the IRAM receiver array in the CO(2-1) line, allowing extended maps of nearby galaxies, at 12" resolution (Leroy et al. 2009). The survey contains an atlas of 18 nearby galaxies, observed at multi-wavelengths, and in particular in the HI line, and in the mid infrared by Spitzer. Among the results, it is interesting to note a very good correlation between CO and HI kinematics. The excitation of the molecular gas, as traced by the first two rotational lines of CO, is usually low in the disk (R = CO(2-1)/CO(1-0) = 0.6) while it is higher in nuclei (R = 1), indicating denser gas. The CO emission is compatible with optically thick clouds at a kinetic temperature of T = 10K.A more refined view of the star formation law in galaxies has been obtained by Bigiel et al. (2008). The Schmidt-Kennicutt law relating star formation and gas density has a different slope n, according to the gas surface density. At high surface density, when the gas is molecular, the gas forms stars at a constant efficiency (n = 1), and the time-scale for star formation is 2 10 9 yrs. While, at low surface density, when the gas is atomic, the slope is much higher n = 2 or more. At sub-kpc scale, the star formation rate is not strongly correlated with HI surface density. The transition between HI and H 2 occurs when the surface density is > 9 M pc −2 .In order to better determine the change across the spiral arms of the molecular gas physical properties, Schinnerer et al. (2010) have mapped at interferometric resolution several lines of CO and its isotopes, together with dense gas tracers, such as HCN and HCO + , in two selected regions across M51 spiral arms. They find no change across the arms, and the GMC population in the spiral arms of M51 is similar to those of the Milky Way, even if the star formation rate is much higher.On the contrary, the low surface brightness dwarf spiral M33 reveals different conditions than in the Milky Way. In the center, the lower metallicity is the cause of a higher conversion factor, as will be describ...

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Section: F Combessupporting

confidence: 57%

Molecular Gas in Galaxies at all Redshifts

Combes¹

2010

Proc. IAU

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“…Under the assumption that the heating of the cold dust is dominated by young stars, the high FIR luminosity (L FIR ∼ 2 × 10 13 L , Beelen et al 2006) translates into a star-formation rate of ∼3000 M yr −1 . These high star-formation rates are corroborated by measurements of the [C ii] emission line at 158 μm (Maiolino et al 2005;Walter et al 2009). Mid-infrared observations Jiang et al 2006) show large amounts of hot dust near the ∼3 × 10 9 M black hole which accretes close to its Eddington limit (Willott et al 2003;Barth et al 2003).…”

Section: J1148+5251mentioning

confidence: 56%

Herschel-PACS far-infrared photometry of twoz > 4 quasars

Leipski¹,

Meisenheimer²,

Klaas³

et al. 2010

A&A

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We present Herschel far-infrared (FIR) observations of two sub-mm bright quasars at high redshift: SDSS J1148+5251 (z = 6.42) and BR 1202−0725 (z = 4.69) obtained with the PACS instrument. Both objects are detected in the PACS photometric bands. The Herschel measurements provide additional data points that constrain the FIR spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of both sources, and they emphasise a broad range of dust temperatures in these objects. For λ rest 20 μm, the two SEDs are very similar to the average SEDs of quasars at low redshift. In the FIR, however, both quasars show excess emission compared to low-z QSO templates, most likely from cold dust powered by vigorous star formation in the QSO host galaxies. For SDSS J1148+5251 we detect another object at 160 μm with a distance of ∼10 from the QSO. Although no physical connection between the quasar and this object can be shown with the available data, it could potentially confuse low-resolution measurements, thus resulting in an overestimate of the FIR luminosity of the z = 6.42 quasar.

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“…Luminous quasar host galaxies (e.g. Maiolino et al, 2005;Iono et al, 2006;Maiolino et al, 2009;Walter et al, 2009;Wagg et al, 2010;Stacey et al, 2010;Gallerani et al, 2012;Carniani et al, 2013), SMGs (e.g. Ivison et al, 2010d;Stacey et al, 2010;Cox et al, 2011;De Breuck et al, 2011;Swinbank et al, 2012;Wagg et al, 2012;George et al, 2013;Huynh et al, 2013) and normal star-forming galaxies (e.g.…”

Section: Atomic Linesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The high-z data is subdivided into quasars and SMGs, and comes from Cox et al (2011) Willott et al (2013) A number of studies have used extremely high resolution [CII] observations to constrain the size of the emitting region of high-z quasar host galaxies. Walter et al (2009) derived a source size of ∼ 1.5 kpc, and suggested that the galaxy was undergoing an Eddington-limited starburst event. Similar compact sizes were derived for two z ∼ 4 quasar host galaxies by Gallerani et al (2012) and Carniani et al (2013), who also detected companion galaxies potentially due to merge with the quasar host.…”

Section: [Cii] Morphologies and Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dusty star-forming galaxies at high redshift

2014

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Far-infrared and submillimeter wavelength surveys have now established the important role of dusty, star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) in the assembly of stellar mass and the evolution of massive galaxies in the Universe. The brightest of these galaxies have infrared luminosities in excess of 10 13 L with implied star-formation rates of thousands of solar masses per year. They represent the most intense starbursts in the Universe, yet many are completely optically obscured. Their easy detection at submm wavelengths is due to dust heated by ultraviolet radiation of newly forming stars. When summed up, all of the dusty, star-forming galaxies in the Universe produce an infrared radiation field that has an equal energy density as the direct starlight emission from all galaxies visible at ultraviolet and optical wavelengths. The bulk of this infrared extragalactic background light emanates from galaxies as diverse as gas-rich disks to mergers of intense starbursting galaxies. Major advances in far-infrared instrumentation in recent years, both spacebased and ground-based, has led to the detection of nearly a million DSFGs, yet our understanding of the underlying astrophysics that govern the start and end of the dusty starburst phase is still in nascent stage. This review is aimed at summarizing the current status of DSFG studies, focusing especially on the detailed characterization of the bestunderstood subset (submillimeter galaxies, who were summarized in the last review of this field over a decade ago, Blain et al. 2002), but also the selection and characterization of more recently discovered DSFG populations. We review DSFG population statistics, their physical properties including dust, gas and stellar contents, their environments, and current theoretical models related to the formation and evolution of these galaxies.

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A kiloparsec-scale hyper-starburst in a quasar host less than 1 gigayear after the Big Bang

Cited by 237 publications

References 29 publications

Molecular Gas in Galaxies at all Redshifts

Molecular Gas in Galaxies at all Redshifts

Herschel-PACS far-infrared photometry of twoz > 4 quasars

Dusty star-forming galaxies at high redshift

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