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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/236859
- Title
- Observational limits on the gas mass of a z = 4.9 GALAXY
- Author(s)
- Livermore, R. C.; Swinbank, A. M.; Smail, I.; Bower, R. G.; Coppin, K. E. K.; Crain, R. A.; Edge, A. C.; Geach, J. E.; Richard, J.
- Abstract
- We present the results of a search for molecular gas emission from a star-forming galaxy at z = 4.9. The galaxy benefits from magnification of 22 ± 5 × due to strong gravitational lensing by the foreground cluster MS1358+62. We target the CO(5-4) emission at a known position and redshift from existing Hubble Space Telescope/Advanced Camera for Surveys imaging and Gemini/NIFS [O II]3727 imaging spectroscopy, and obtain a tentative detection at the 4.3σ level with a flux of 0.104 ± 0.024 Jy km s–1. From the CO line luminosity and assuming a CO-to-H2 conversion factor α = 2, we derive a gas mass M gas ~ 1+1 – 0.6 × 109 M ☉. Combined with the existing data, we derive a gas fraction M gas/(M gas + M *) = 0.59+0.11 – 0.06. The faint line flux of this galaxy highlights the difficulty of observing molecular gas in representative galaxies at this epoch, and suggests that routine detections of similar galaxies in the absence of gravitational lensing will remain challenging even with ALMA in full science operations.
- Publication type
- Journal article
- Research centre
- Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies. Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing
- Source
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 758, no. 2 (Oct 2012), article no. 758
- Publication year
- 2012
- FOR Code(s)
- 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences
- Keyword(s)
- Galaxies; Gravitational lensing; Redshifts; Star formation
- Publisher
- Institute of Physics Publishing
- ISSN
- 2041-8205
- Publisher URL
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/758/2/l35
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2012 The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. The American Astronomical Society does not allow Swinburne Research Bank to archive either the accepted manuscript or the published version of the article. However you can find an earlier version of the full text here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.0899v1
- Peer reviewed
