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 1 514-528Subject Categories
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
DOI
10.1093/mnras/sty3128