Measuring the Heating and Cooling of the Interstellar Medium at High Redshift: PAH and [C ii] Observations of the Same Star-forming Galaxies at z ∼ 2

McKinney, Jed; Pope, Alexandra; Armus, L.; Chary, R.-R.; Díaz-Santos, T.; Dickinson, Mark; Kirkpatrick, Allison

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab77b9

Cited by 14 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 111 publications

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“…wide distribution of the radiation field intensities, different optical depths, and source geometry). This is in line with results from studies that have explored the cosmic evolution of interstellar radiation fields and its complex link to galaxy stellar mass (Béthermin et al 2015;Schreiber et al 2018) or gas mass (Kirkpatrick et al 2017;McKinney et al 2020).…”

Section: Evolution Of M Dust −Sfr With Respect To the Mssupporting

confidence: 89%

In pursuit of giants

Donevski

Lapi

Małek

et al. 2020

A&A

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The dust-to-stellar mass ratio (Mdust/M⋆) is a crucial, albeit poorly constrained, parameter for improving our understanding of the complex physical processes involved in the production of dust, metals, and stars in galaxy evolution. In this work, we explore trends of Mdust/M⋆ with different physical parameters and using observations of 300 massive dusty star-forming galaxies detected with ALMA up to z ≈ 5. Additionally, we interpret our findings with different models of dusty galaxy formation. We find that Mdust/M⋆ evolves with redshift, stellar mass, specific star formation rates, and integrated dust size, but that evolution is different for main-sequence galaxies than it is for starburst galaxies. In both galaxy populations, Mdust/M⋆ increases until z ∼ 2, followed by a roughly flat trend towards higher redshifts, suggesting efficient dust growth in the distant universe. We confirm that the inverse relation between Mdust/M⋆ and M⋆ holds up to z ≈ 5 and can be interpreted as an evolutionary transition from early to late starburst phases. We demonstrate that the Mdust/M⋆ in starbursts reflects the increase in molecular gas fraction with redshift and attains the highest values for sources with the most compact dusty star formation. State-of-the-art cosmological simulations that include self-consistent dust growth have the capacity to broadly reproduce the evolution of Mdust/M⋆ in main-sequence galaxies, but underestimating it in starbursts. The latter is found to be linked to lower gas-phase metallicities and longer dust-growth timescales relative to observations. The results of phenomenological models based on the main-sequence and starburst dichotomy as well as analytical models that include recipes for rapid metal enrichment are consistent with our observations. Therefore, our results strongly suggest that high Mdust/M⋆ is due to rapid dust grain growth in the metal-enriched interstellar medium. This work highlights the multi-fold benefits of using Mdust/M⋆ as a diagnostic tool for: (1) disentangling main-sequence and starburst galaxies up to z ∼ 5; (2) probing the evolutionary phase of massive objects; and (3) refining the treatment of the dust life cycle in simulations.

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Section: Evolution Of M Dust −Sfr With Respect To the Mssupporting

confidence: 89%

In pursuit of giants

Donevski

Lapi

Małek

et al. 2020

A&A

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“…This reinforces the link between the ejection of photoelectrons from PAH grains and the collisional excitation of [C II] and other fine-structure lines, and suggests that the heating and cooling processes within PDRs behave similarly for normal star-forming conditions over a range of T dust and L IR . Interestingly, McKinney et al (2020) found lower [C II]/PAH emission at z ∼ 2 than z ∼ 0, suggesting evolution in the heating and cooling balance with redshift. However, the cooling/heating ratio has yet to be fully characterized in z ∼ 0 starbursts, which represents a key step for future studies of the early universe.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Recent efforts to combine mid-and far-IR measurements of gas heating and cooling at z ∼ 1-2 are largely limited to handfuls of ULIRGs with archival Spitzer/IRS spectra (Brisbin et al 2015;McKinney et al 2020 II] as in local (U)LIRGs. If this is the case, then GS IRS20 would have a 3.3 μm PAH flux of 7 × 10 −17 W m −2 , which can be easily detected in under 15 minutes by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).…”

Section: Prospects For Star Formation At High Redshiftmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulating Star Formation in Nearby Dusty Galaxies: Low Photoelectric Efficiencies in the Most Compact Systems

McKinney

Armus

Pope

et al. 2021

ApJ

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Star formation in galaxies is regulated by heating and cooling in the interstellar medium (ISM). In particular, the processing of molecular gas into stars will depend strongly on the ratio of gas heating to gas cooling in the neutral gas around sites of recent star formation. In this work, we combine mid-infrared (mid-IR) observations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the dominant heating mechanism of gas in the ISM, with [C II], [O I], and [Si II] fine-structure emission, the strongest cooling channels in dense, neutral gas. The ratio of IR cooling line emission to PAH emission measures the photoelectric efficiency, a property of the ISM which dictates how much energy carried by ultraviolet photons gets transferred into the gas. We find that star-forming, IR-luminous galaxies in the Great Observatories All-Sky LIRG Survey with high IR surface densities have low photoelectric efficiencies. These systems also have, on average, higher ratios of radiation field strength to gas densities, and larger average dust grain size distributions. The data support a scenario in which the most compact galaxies have more young starforming regions per unit area that exhibit less efficient gas heating. These conditions may be more common at high z, and may help explain the higher star formation rates at cosmic noon. We make predictions on how this can be investigated with the James Webb Space Telescope.

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“…Recent efforts to combine mid-and far-IR measurements of gas heating and cooling at z ∼ 1 − 2 are largely limited to handfuls of ULIRGs with archival Spitzer /IRS spectra (Brisbin et al 2015;McKinney et al 2020). Using ALMA, McKinney et al (2020) compared the [C II] and 6.2 µm PAH emission for GS IRS20, a luminous, compact starburst galaxy at z = 1.9239 and found a low [C II]/6.2 µm ratio at high IR surface density that could indicate a low photoelectric efficiency. This galaxy has a L [C II] /L 11.3 ratio of 0.11, which would correspond to a 11.3/3.3 µm ratio of 21.5 if z ∼ 2 galaxies follow similar scaling relations between the PAH features and [C II] as in local (U)LIRGs.…”

Section: Prospects For Star-formation At High-redshiftmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulating Star Formation in Nearby Dusty Galaxies: Low Photoelectric Efficiencies in the Most Compact Systems

McKinney,

Armus,

Pope

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Star formation in galaxies is regulated by the heating and cooling in the interstellar medium. In particular, the processing of molecular gas into stars will depend strongly on the ratio of gas heating to gas cooling in the neutral gas around sites of recent star-formation. In this work, we combine mid-infrared (mid-IR) observations of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), the dominant heating mechanism of gas in the interstellar medium (ISM), with [C II],[O I], and [Si II] fine-structure emission, the strongest cooling channels in dense, neutral gas. The ratio of IR cooling line emission to PAH emission measures the photoelectric efficiency, a property of the ISM which dictates how much energy carried by ultraviolet photons gets transferred into the gas. We find that star-forming, IR luminous galaxies in the Great Observatories All-Sky LIRG Survey (GOALS) with high IR surface densities have low photoelectric efficiencies. These systems also have, on average, higher ratios of radiation field strength to gas densities, and larger average dust grain size distributions. The data support a scenario in which the most compact galaxies have more young star-forming regions per unit area, which exhibit less efficient gas heating. These conditions may be more common at high−z, and may help explain the higher star-formation rates at cosmic noon. We make predictions on how this can be investigated with JWST.

show abstract

Measuring the Heating and Cooling of the Interstellar Medium at High Redshift: PAH and [C ii] Observations of the Same Star-forming Galaxies at z ∼ 2

Cited by 14 publications

References 111 publications

In pursuit of giants

In pursuit of giants

Regulating Star Formation in Nearby Dusty Galaxies: Low Photoelectric Efficiencies in the Most Compact Systems

Regulating Star Formation in Nearby Dusty Galaxies: Low Photoelectric Efficiencies in the Most Compact Systems

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