Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 472, Issue 2, Pages 2028-2041Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx1956
Keywords
ISM: molecules; galaxies: high-redshift; galaxies: ISM; galaxies: starburst
Categories
Funding
- European Research Council [321302]
- EACOA fellowship
- National Science Foundation [AST-1614213]
- Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under the Ramon y Cajal program [MINECO RYC-2014-15686]
- INSU/CNRS (France)
- MPG (Germany)
- IGN (Spain)
- European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere under ESO programme [090.A-0891(A)]
- STFC [ST/J001449/1, ST/K000926/1, ST/M000907/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [1513305, ST/M000907/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1614213] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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We present 1.3- and/or 3-mm continuum images and 3-mm spectral scans, obtained using Northern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) and Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), of 21 distant, dusty, star-forming galaxies. Our sample is a subset of the galaxies selected by Ivison et al. on the basis of their extremely red far-infrared (far-IR) colours and low Herschel flux densities; most are thus expected to be unlensed, extraordinarily luminous starbursts at z greater than or similar to 4, modulo the considerable cross-section to gravitational lensing implied by their redshift. We observed 17 of these galaxies with NOEMA and four with ALMA, scanning through the 3-mm atmospheric window. We have obtained secure redshifts for seven galaxies via detection of multiple CO lines, one of them a lensed system at z = 6.027 (two others are also found to be lensed); a single emission line was detected in another four galaxies, one of which has been shown elsewhere to lie at z = 4.002. Where we find no spectroscopic redshifts, the galaxies are generally less luminous by 0.3-0.4 dex, which goes some way to explaining our failure to detect line emission. We show that this sample contains the most luminous known star-forming galaxies. Due to their extreme star-formation activity, these galaxies will consume their molecular gas in less than or similar to 100 Myr, despite their high molecular gas masses, and are therefore plausible progenitors of the massive, 'red-and-dead' elliptical galaxies at z approximate to 3.
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