The Nature of Star Formation in Lensed Galaxies at High Redshift

Smail, I.; Ellis, R.S.; Aragón-Salamanca, A.; Soucail, G.; Mellier, Y.; Giraud, E.

doi:10.1093/mnras/263.3.628

The Nature of Star Formation in Lensed Galaxies at High Redshift

Smail, I.; Ellis, R.S.; Aragón-Salamanca, A.; Soucail, G.; Mellier, Y.; Giraud, E.

Authors

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

R.S. Ellis

A. Aragón-Salamanca

G. Soucail

Y. Mellier

E. Giraud

Abstract

We present near-infrared photometry of all available gravitationally lensed ‘arcs’ with spectroscopic redshifts. By combining this photometry with optical data, we find that the bulk of the systems with z ~ 1 are intrinsically blue across the rest-frame spectral region 2000 Å to 1 μm. Using a combination of optical and optical-infrared colours, we demonstrate that these systems cannot be blue by virtue of a secondary burst of star formation superimposed on an evolved population, but we are unable to distinguish directly between major star formation events in a generic young galaxy and an extended era of constant star formation typical of late-type spirals. Using various arguments, we conclude that our arcs represent modest gravitational magnification of typical field galaxies. Consequently, if the star formation seen is representative of that in field galaxies at z ≥ 1, the absence of high-redshift galaxies in current deep spectroscopic surveys to bJ≃24bJ≃24 supports the hypothesis that the bulk of the star formation in normal galaxies occurred over an extended era up to the epoch corresponding to z ~ 1.

Citation

Smail, I., Ellis, R., Aragón-Salamanca, A., Soucail, G., Mellier, Y., & Giraud, E. (1993). The Nature of Star Formation in Lensed Galaxies at High Redshift. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 263(3), 628-640. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/263.3.628

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Aug 1, 1993
Deposit Date	Nov 10, 2016
Publicly Available Date	Nov 10, 2016
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	263
Issue	3
Pages	628-640
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/263.3.628

Files

Published Journal Article (1.4 Mb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 1993 Royal Astronomical Society. Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.