An ALMA survey of CO in submillimetre galaxies: companions, triggering, and the environment in blended sources

Wardlow, J.L.; Simpson, J.M.; Smail, Ian; Swinbank, A.M.; Blain, A.W.; Brandt, W.N.; Chapman, S.C.; Chen, Chian-Chou; Cooke, E.A.; Dannerbauer, H.; Gullberg, B.; Hodge, J.A.; Ivison, R.J.; Knudsen, K.K.; Scott, Douglas; Thomson, A.P.; Weiß, A.; van der Werf, P.P.

doi:10.1093/mnras/sty1526

An ALMA survey of CO in submillimetre galaxies: companions, triggering, and the environment in blended sources

Wardlow, J.L.; Simpson, J.M.; Smail, Ian; Swinbank, A.M.; Blain, A.W.; Brandt, W.N.; Chapman, S.C.; Chen, Chian-Chou; Cooke, E.A.; Dannerbauer, H.; Gullberg, B.; Hodge, J.A.; Ivison, R.J.; Knudsen, K.K.; Scott, Douglas; Thomson, A.P.; Weiß, A.; van der Werf, P.P.

Authors

J.L. Wardlow

J.M. Simpson

Professor Ian Smail ian.smail@durham.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor

Professor Mark Swinbank a.m.swinbank@durham.ac.uk
Professor

A.W. Blain

W.N. Brandt

S.C. Chapman

Chian-Chou Chen

E.A. Cooke

H. Dannerbauer

B. Gullberg

J.A. Hodge

R.J. Ivison

K.K. Knudsen

Douglas Scott

Dr Alasdair Thomson alasdair.thomson@durham.ac.uk
Academic Visitor

A. Weiß

P.P. van der Werf

Abstract

We present ALMA observations of the mid-J 12CO emission from six single-dish selected 870-μm sources in the Extended Chandra Deep Field-South and UKIDSS Ultra-Deep Survey fields. These six single-dish submillimetre sources were selected based on previous ALMA continuum observations, which showed that each comprised a blend of emission from two or more individual submillimetre galaxies (SMGs), separated on 5–10 arcsec scales. The six single-dish submillimetre sources targeted correspond to a total of 14 individual SMGs, of which seven have previously measured robust optical/near-infrared spectroscopic redshifts, which were used to tune our ALMA observations. We detect CO(3–2) or CO(4–3) at z = 2.3–3.7 in 7 of the 14 SMGs, and in addition serendipitously detect line emission from three gas-rich companion galaxies, as well as identify four new 3.3 mm selected continuum sources in the six fields. Joint analysis of our CO spectroscopy and existing data suggests that 64(±18)percent of the SMGs in blended submillimetre sources are unlikely to be physically associated. However, three of the SMG fields (50 per cent) contain new, serendipitously detected CO-emitting (but submillimetre-faint) sources at similar redshifts to the 870 μm selected SMGs we targeted. These data suggest that the SMGs inhabit overdense regions, but that these are not sufficiently overdense on ∼100 kpc scales to influence the source blending given the short lifetimes of SMGs. We find that 21±12percent of SMGs have spatially distinct and kinematically close companion galaxies (∼8–150 kpc and ≲ 300 km s−1), which may have enhanced their star formation via gravitational interactions.

Citation

Wardlow, J., Simpson, J., Smail, I., Swinbank, A., Blain, A., Brandt, W., …van der Werf, P. (2018). An ALMA survey of CO in submillimetre galaxies: companions, triggering, and the environment in blended sources. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 479(3), 3879-3891. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty1526

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 6, 2018
Online Publication Date	Jun 14, 2018
Publication Date	Sep 21, 2018
Deposit Date	Aug 23, 2018
Publicly Available Date	Aug 23, 2018
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN	0035-8711
Electronic ISSN	1365-2966
Publisher	Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	479
Issue	3
Pages	3879-3891
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty1526

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Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2018 Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.