Herschel-ATLAS: properties of dusty massive galaxies at low and high redshifts

Rowlands, K., Dunne, Loretta ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9880-2543, Dye, S., Aragon-Salamanca, A., Maddox, Steve ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5549-195X, da Cunha, E., Smith, D. J. B., Bourne, N., Eales, Stephen Anthony ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7394-426X, Gomez, Haley Louise ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3398-0052, Smail, I., Alpaslan, M., Clark, Christopher Jonathan Redfern, Driver, S., Ibar, E., Ivison, R. J., Robotham, A., Smith, Matthew William L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3532-6970 and Valiante, Elisabetta 2014. Herschel-ATLAS: properties of dusty massive galaxies at low and high redshifts. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 441 (2) , pp. 1017-1039. 10.1093/mnras/stu510

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Abstract

We present a comparison of the physical properties of a rest-frame 250-μm-selected sample of massive, dusty galaxies from 0 < z < 5.3. Our sample comprises 29 high-redshift submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) from the literature and 843 dusty galaxies at z < 0.5 from the Herschel-Astrophysical TeraHertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS), selected to have a similar stellar mass to the SMGs. The z > 1 SMGs have an average star formation rate (SFR) of 390 +80 −70 M⊙ yr−1, which is 120 times that of the low-redshift sample matched in stellar mass to the SMGs (SFR = 3.3 ± 0.2 M⊙ yr−1). The SMGs harbour a substantial mass of dust (1.2 +0.3 −0.2 ×10 9 M⊙), compared to (1.6 ± 0.1) × 108  M⊙ for low-redshift dusty galaxies. At low redshifts, the dust luminosity is dominated by the diffuse interstellar medium, whereas a large fraction of the dust luminosity in SMGs originates from star-forming regions. At the same dust mass, SMGs are offset towards a higher SFR compared to the low-redshift H-ATLAS galaxies. This is not only due to the higher gas fraction in SMGs but also because they are undergoing a more efficient mode of star formation, which is consistent with their bursty star formation histories. The offset in SFR between SMGs and low-redshift galaxies is similar to that found in CO studies, suggesting that dust mass is as good a tracer of molecular gas as CO.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics
Additional Information:	Pdf uploaded in accordance with publisher's policy at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/0035-8711/ (ACCESSED 18.07.14).
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISSN:	0035-8711
Funders:	STFC
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Date of Acceptance:	9 March 2014
Last Modified:	03 Jan 2024 02:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/61682

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