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A mid-infrared imaging survey of submillimeter-selected galaxies with the Spitzer space telescope

Hainline, L.J.; Blain, A.W.; Smail, I.; Frayer, D.T.; Chapman, S.C.; Ivison, R.J.; Alexander, D.M.

A mid-infrared imaging survey of submillimeter-selected galaxies with the Spitzer space telescope Thumbnail


Authors

L.J. Hainline

A.W. Blain

D.T. Frayer

S.C. Chapman

R.J. Ivison



Abstract

We present Spitzer-IRAC and MIPS mid-IR observations of a sample of 73 radio-detected submillimeter-selected galaxies (SMGs) with spectroscopic redshifts, the largest such sample published to date. From our data, we find that IRAC colors of SMGs are much more uniform as compared with rest-frame UV and optical colors, and z>1.5 SMGs tend to be redder in their mid-IR colors than both field galaxies and lower-z SMGs. However, the IRAC colors of the SMGs overlap those of field galaxies sufficiently that color-magnitude and color-color selection criteria suggested in the literature to identify SMG counterparts produce ambiguous counterparts within an 8'' radius in 20%-35% of cases. We use a rest-frame J-H versus H-K color-color diagram and a S 24/S 8.0 versus S 8.0/S 4.5 color-color diagram to determine that 13%-19% of our sample are likely to contain active galactic nuclei which dominate their mid-IR emission. We observe in the rest-frame JHK colors of our sample that the rest-frame near-IR emission of SMGs does not resemble that of the compact nuclear starburst observed in local ultraluminous IR galaxies and is consistent with more widely distributed star formation. We take advantage of the fact that many high-z galaxy populations selected at different wavelengths are detected by Spitzer to carry out a brief comparison of mid-IR properties of SMGs to UV-selected high-z galaxies, 24 μm-selected galaxies, and high-z radio galaxies, and find that SMGs have mid-IR fluxes and colors which are consistent with being more massive and more reddened than UV-selected galaxies, while the IRAC colors of SMGs are most similar to powerful high-z radio galaxies.

Citation

Hainline, L., Blain, A., Smail, I., Frayer, D., Chapman, S., Ivison, R., & Alexander, D. (2009). A mid-infrared imaging survey of submillimeter-selected galaxies with the Spitzer space telescope. Astrophysical Journal, 699(2), 1610-1632. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/699/2/1610

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jul 1, 2009
Deposit Date Aug 22, 2013
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Astrophysical Journal
Print ISSN 0004-637X
Electronic ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher American Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 699
Issue 2
Pages 1610-1632
DOI https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/699/2/1610
Keywords Galaxies, Evolution, Formation, High-redshift, Infrared.

Files

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Copyright Statement
© 2009. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.





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