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Tracing the evolution of dust-obscured activity using sub-millimetre galaxy populations from STUDIES and AS2UDS

Dudzevičiūtė, U; Smail, Ian; Swinbank, AM; Lim, C-F; Wang, W-H; Simpson, JM; Ao, Y; Chapman, SC; Chen, C-C; Clements, D; Dannerbauer, H; Ho, LC; Hwang, HS; Koprowski, M; Lee, C-H; Scott, D; Shim, H; Shirley, R; Toba, Y

Tracing the evolution of dust-obscured activity using sub-millimetre galaxy populations from STUDIES and AS2UDS Thumbnail


Authors

C-F Lim

W-H Wang

JM Simpson

Y Ao

SC Chapman

C-C Chen

D Clements

H Dannerbauer

LC Ho

HS Hwang

M Koprowski

C-H Lee

D Scott

H Shim

R Shirley

Y Toba



Abstract

We analyse the physical properties of 121 SNR ≥ 5 sub-millimetre galaxies (SMGs) from the STUDIES 450 μm survey. We model their UV-to-radio spectral energy distributions using MAGPHYS+photo-z and compare the results to similar modelling of 850 μm-selected SMG sample from AS2UDS, to understand the fundamental physical differences between the two populations at the observed depths. The redshift distribution of the 450-μm sample has a median of z = 1.85 ± 0.12 and can be described by strong evolution of the far-infrared luminosity function. The fainter 450-μm sample has ∼14 times higher space density than the brighter 850-μm sample at z ≲ 2, and a comparable space density at z = 2–3, before rapidly declining, suggesting LIRGs are the main obscured population at z ∼ 1–2, while ULIRGs dominate at higher redshifts. We construct rest-frame ∼180-μm-selected and dust-mass-matched samples at z = 1–2 and z = 3–4 from the 450 and 850-μm samples, respectively, to probe the evolution of a uniform sample of galaxies spanning the cosmic noon era. Using far-infrared luminosity, dust masses, and an optically thick dust model, we suggest that higher redshift sources have higher dust densities due to inferred dust continuum sizes which are roughly half of those for the lower redshift population at a given dust mass, leading to higher dust attenuation. We track the evolution in the cosmic dust mass density and suggest that the dust content of galaxies is governed by a combination of both the variation of gas content and dust destruction time-scale.

Citation

Dudzevičiūtė, U., Smail, I., Swinbank, A., Lim, C., Wang, W., Simpson, J., …Toba, Y. (2021). Tracing the evolution of dust-obscured activity using sub-millimetre galaxy populations from STUDIES and AS2UDS. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 500(1), 942-961. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa3285

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 12, 2020
Online Publication Date Oct 24, 2020
Publication Date 2021-01
Deposit Date Nov 4, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
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 500
Issue 1
Pages 942-961
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa3285

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Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. ©: 2020 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.





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