C II emission in z similar to 6 strongly lensed, star-forming galaxies
Journal article, 2016

The far-infrared fine-structure line [C II] at 1900.5 GHz is known to be one of the brightest cooling lines in local galaxies, and therefore it has been suggested to be an efficient tracer for star formation in very high redshift galaxies. However, recent results for galaxies at z > 6 have yielded numerous non-detections in star-forming galaxies, except for quasars and submillimetre galaxies. We report the results of ALMA observations of two lensed, star-forming galaxies at z = 6.029 and z = 6.703. The galaxy A383-5.1 (star formation rate [SFR] of 3.2 M-circle dot yr(-1) and magnification of mu = 11.4 +/- 1.9) shows a line detection with L-[C II] = 8.9 x 10(6) L-circle dot, making it the lowest L-[C II] detection at z > 6. For MS0451-H (SFR = 0.4 M-circle dot yr(-1) and mu = 100 +/- 20) we provide an upper limit of L-[C II] < 3 x 10(5) L-circle dot, which is 1 dex below the local SFR-L-[C II] relations. The results are consistent with predictions for low-metallicity galaxies at z > 6; however, other effects could also play a role in terms of decreasing L-[CII]. The detection of A383-5.1 is encouraging and suggests that detections are possible, but much fainter than initially predicted.

submillimetre: galaxies

galaxies: formation

galaxies: evolution

galaxies: ISM

galaxies: high-redshift

Author

Kirsten Kraiberg Knudsen

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics

J. Richard

CRAL Le Centre de Recherche Astronomique de Lyon

J.P.J.P. Kneib

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille

Mathilde Jauzac

Durham University

University of KwaZulu-Natal

B. Clément

CRAL Le Centre de Recherche Astronomique de Lyon

Guillaume Drouart

Curtin University

E. Egami

University of Arizona

Lukas Lindroos

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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

Vol. 462 1 L6-L10

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Subject Categories

Physical Sciences

Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

Roots

Basic sciences

DOI

10.1093/mnrasl/slw114

More information

Latest update

8/29/2018