4.7 Article

A MAGNIFIED VIEW OF THE KINEMATICS AND MORPHOLOGY OF RCSGA 032727-132609: ZOOMING IN ON A MERGER AT z=1.7

Journal

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 781, Issue 2, Pages -

Publisher

IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/781/2/61

Keywords

galaxies: high-redshift; galaxies: kinematics and dynamics; galaxies: structure; gravitational lensing: strong

Funding

  1. NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute [12267]
  2. NASA [NAS 5-26555]
  3. Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society
  4. NASA Keck PI Data Award
  5. University of Michigan's Presidential Fellowship
  6. W. M. Keck Foundation

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We present a detailed analysis of multi-wavelength Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) imaging and Keck/OSIRIS near-infrared adaptive optics-assisted integral field spectroscopy for a highly magnified lensed galaxy at z = 1.70. This young starburst is representative of ultraviolet-selected star-forming galaxies (SFGs) at z similar to 2 and contains multiple individual star-forming regions. Due to the lensing magnification, we can resolve spatial scales down to 100 pc in the source plane of the galaxy. The velocity field shows disturbed kinematics suggestive of an ongoing interaction and there is a clear signature of a tidal tail. We constrain the age, reddening, star formation rate, and stellar mass of the star-forming clumps from spectral energy distribution ( SED) modeling of the WFC3 photometry and measure their H alpha luminosity, metallicity, and outflow properties from the OSIRIS data. With strong star-formation-driven outflows in four clumps, RCSGA0327 is the first high-redshift SFG at stellar mass <10(10) M-O with spatially resolved stellar winds. We compare the H alpha luminosities, sizes, and dispersions of the star-forming regions with other high-z clumps as well as local giant H II regions and find no evidence for increased clump star formation surface densities in interacting systems, unlike in the local universe. Spatially resolved SED modeling unveils an established stellar population at the location of the largest clump and a second mass concentration near the edge of the system that is not detected in H alpha emission. This suggests a picture of an equal-mass mixed major merger, which has not triggered a new burst of star formation or caused a tidal tail in the gas-poor component.

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