Analyzing Star Formation Properties in Dusty Early Universe Galaxies Using Gravitational Lensing

Bradli, J. C.; Bussmann, R. Shane; Riechers, Dominik A.; Clements, David; Perez-Fournon, I.
Referencia bibliográfica

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #225, #251.13

Fecha de publicación:
1
2015
Número de autores
5
Número de autores del IAC
1
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
Strong gravitational lensing has recently become one of the most important tools for studying star formation properties in extremely high redshift galaxies. Dust-obscured star-forming galaxies found at far-infrared/sub-millimeter wavelengths are important in the assembly of stellar mass and the evolution of massive galaxies. We present Submillimeter Array (SMA) imaging of Lockman 102, a strongly lensed submillimeter galaxy at z=5.29, discovered by the Herschel Space Observatory. The system was observed at 250, 350, 500 and 1000 microns, corresponding to rest frame wavelengths of 40, 56, 80, and 159 microns respectively. The observations were targeted at the thermal dust emission and the [CII] interstellar medium cooling line. We report an estimated photometric redshift of ~1.9 for the lensing galaxy, making it possibly the most distant lens currently known. We use uvmcmcfit, a publicly available Markov Chain Monte Carlo software tool we have developed for interferometric data, to fit lens models to Lockman 102. The results obtained from uvmcmcfit suggest the lensed system is composed of a single lensing galaxy and two extended sources. We have strong constraints on an intrinsic flux density of Lockman 102 of 4.55 + 0.45 mJy magnified by a factor of 12.5 + 1.2. From a modified blackbody fit we compute an intrinsic far infrared luminosity of 5.5e12 L⊙.This implies a star formation rate of ~950 M⊙ yr-1, making Lockman 102 an extremely active dusty galaxy. We also compare Lockman 102 to other dusty luminous starburst galaxies at similar redshift, HLS0918 (Rawle et al. 2014) and AzTEC-3 (Riechers et al. 2014a) and determine it is among the most luminous and active galaxies ~1 Gyr after the Big Bang. It is only with strong lensing that the SMA is able to undertake such a detailed study of a galaxy at this distance; the continued improvements from new facilities such as ALMA offer a promising future in observing even more distant lensed systems.