The environments of luminous radio-WISE selected infrared galaxiess
Journal article, 2019

We have observed the environments of a population of 33 heavily dust obscured, ultraluminous, high-redshift galaxies, selected using Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and NRAO 1.4 GHz VLA Sky Survey atz > 1.3 with the infrared array camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope over 5.12 arcmin x 5.12 arcmin fields. Colour selections are used to quantify any potential overdensities of companion galaxies in these fields. We find no significant excess of galaxies with the standard colour selection for IRAC colours of [3.6] - [4.5] > -0.1 consistent with galaxies atz > 1.3 across the whole fields with respect to wide-area Spitzer comparison fields, but there is a > 2 sigma statistical excess within 0.25 arcmin of the central radio-WISE galaxy. Using a colour selection of [3.6] - [4.5] > 0.4, 0.5 magnitudes redder than the standard method of selecting galaxies atz > 1.3, we find a significant overdensity, in which 76 per cent (33 per cent) of the 33 fields have a surface density greater than the 3 sigma (5 sigma) level. There is a statistical excess of these redder galaxies within 0.5 arcmin, rising to a central peak similar to 2-4 times the average density. This implies that these galaxies are statistically linked to the radio-WISE selected galaxy, indicating similar structures to those traced by red galaxies around radio-loud active galactic nuclei.

galaxies: evolution

galaxies: active

infrared: galaxies

Author

J. I. Penney

University Of Leicester

A. W. Blain

University Of Leicester

D. Wylezalek

Johns Hopkins University

N. A. Hatch

University of Nottingham

C. Lonsdale

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

A. Kimball

National Radio Astronomy Observatory Socorro

R. J. Assef

Diego Portales University

J. J. Condon

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

P. R. M. Eisenhardt

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Suzy Jones

Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Astronomy and Plasmaphysics

M. Kim

Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute

Kyungpook National University

M. Lacy

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

S. I. Muldrew

University Of Leicester

S. Petty

NorthWest Research Associates, Inc.

A. Sajina

Tufts University

A. Silva

Tufts University

National Institutes of Natural Sciences

D. Stern

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

T. Diaz-Santos

Diego Portales University

C-W. Tsai

University of California at Los Angeles

J. Wu

Chinese Academy of Sciences

University of California at Los Angeles

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

0035-8711 (ISSN) 1365-2966 (eISSN)

Vol. 483 1 514-528

Subject Categories

Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

DOI

10.1093/mnras/sty3128

More information

Latest update

6/28/2021