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ALMACAL IX: Multiband ALMA survey for dusty star-forming galaxies and the resolved fractions of the cosmic infrared background

Chen, Jianhang; Ivison, RJ; Zwaan, Martin A; Smail, Ian; Klitsch, Anne; Péroux, Céline; Popping, Gergö; Biggs, Andrew D; Szakacs, Roland; Hamanowicz, Aleksandra; Lagos, Claudia

ALMACAL IX: Multiband ALMA survey for dusty star-forming galaxies and the resolved fractions of the cosmic infrared background Thumbnail


Authors

Jianhang Chen

RJ Ivison

Martin A Zwaan

Anne Klitsch

Céline Péroux

Gergö Popping

Andrew D Biggs

Roland Szakacs

Aleksandra Hamanowicz

Claudia Lagos



Abstract

Wide, deep, blind continuum surveys at submillimetre/millimetre (submm/mm) wavelengths are required to provide a full inventory of the dusty, distant Universe. However, conducting such surveys to the necessary depth, with sub-arcsec angular resolution, is prohibitively time-consuming, even for the most advanced submm/mm telescopes. Here, we report the most recent results from the ALMACAL project, which exploits the ‘free’ calibration data from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) to map the lines of sight towards and beyond the ALMA calibrators. ALMACAL has now covered 1001 calibrators, with a total sky coverage around 0.3 deg2, distributed across the sky accessible from the Atacama desert, and has accumulated more than 1000 h of integration. The depth reached by combining multiple visits to each field makes ALMACAL capable of searching for faint, dusty, star-forming galaxies (DSFGs), with detections at multiple frequencies to constrain the emission mechanism. Based on the most up-to-date ALMACAL data base, we report the detection of 186 DSFGs with flux densities down to S870 µm ∼ 0.2 mJy, comparable with existing ALMA large surveys but less susceptible to cosmic variance. We report the number counts at five wavelengths between 870 μm and 3 mm, in ALMA bands 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, providing a benchmark for models of galaxy formation and evolution. By integrating the observed number counts and the best-fitting functions, we also present the resolved fraction of the cosmic infrared background (CIB) and the CIB spectral shape. Combining existing surveys, ALMA has currently resolved about half of the CIB in the submm/mm regime.

Citation

Chen, J., Ivison, R., Zwaan, M. A., Smail, I., Klitsch, A., Péroux, C., …Lagos, C. (2023). ALMACAL IX: Multiband ALMA survey for dusty star-forming galaxies and the resolved fractions of the cosmic infrared background. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 518(1), 1378-1397. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac2989

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 14, 2022
Online Publication Date Oct 21, 2022
Publication Date 2023-01
Deposit Date Jan 31, 2023
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 518
Issue 1
Pages 1378-1397
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac2989

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Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. ©: 2022 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.





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