Dynamical Properties of z ~ 2 Star-forming Galaxies and a Universal Star Formation Relation

By N. Bouché, G. Cresci, Roger Davies, F. Eisenhauer, N. F. Förster Schreiber, R. Genzel, S. Gillessen, M. Lehnert, D. Lutz, N. Nesvadba and 10 more. 2007

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We present the first comparison of the dynamical properties of different samples of z ~ 1.4-3.4 star-forming galaxies from spatially resolved imaging spectroscopy from SINFONI/VLT integral field spectroscopy and IRAM CO millimeter interferometry. Our samples include 16 rest-frame UV-selected, 16 rest-frame optically selected, and 13 submillimeter galaxies (SMGs). We find that rest-frame UV and optically bright (K < 20) z ~ 2 star forming galaxies are dynamically similar, and follow the same velocity-size relation as disk galaxies at z ~ 0. In the theoretical framework of rotating disks forming from dissipative collapse in dark matter halos, the two samples require a spin parameter ranging from 0.06 to 0.2. In contrast, bright SMGs (S850 μm ⩾ 5 mJy) have larger velocity widths and are much more compact. Hence, SMGs have lower angular momenta and higher matter densities than either the UV or optically selected populations. This indicates that dissipative major mergers may dominate the SMGs population, resulting in early spheroids, and that a significant fraction of the UV/optically bright galaxies have evolved less violently, either in a series of minor mergers, or in rapid dissipative collapse from the halo, given that either process may leads to the formation of early disks. These early disks may later evolve into spheroids via disk instabilities or mergers. Because of their small sizes and large densities, SMGs lie at the high surface density end of a universal (out to z = 2.5) "Schmidt-Kennicutt" relation between gas surface density and star formation rate surface density. The best-fit relation suggests that the star formation rate per unit area scales as the surface gas density to a power of ~1.7, and that the star formation efficiency increases by a factor of 4 between non-starbursts and strong starbursts.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

• LSD: Lyman-break galaxies Stellar populations and Dynamics – I. Mass, metallicity and gas at z∼ 3.1 (2009, background): “Other recent works by Bouché et al. (2007), Genzel et al. (2008) and Cresci et al. (2009) are addressing this problem, and the amount of accumulated information is rapidly growing.”
• WHAT DOES A SUBMILLIMETER GALAXY SELECTION ACTUALLY SELECT? THE DEPENDENCE OF SUBMILLIMETER FLUX DENSITY ON STAR FORMATION RATE AND DUST MASS (2010, unknown): “Swinbank et al. 2004; Greve et al. 2005; Tacconi et al. 2006, 2008; Bouché et al. 2007; Biggs & Ivison 2008; Capak et al. 2008; Younger et al. 2008, 2010; Iono et al. 2009; Engel et al. 2010).”
• THE DISRUPTION OF GIANT MOLECULAR CLOUDS BY RADIATION PRESSURE & THE EFFICIENCY OF STAR FORMATION IN GALAXIES (2009, background): “There are indications, however, that the star formation efficiencyη may be larger in ULIRGs and sub-mm galaxies, withη ∼ 0.1 (Bouché et al. 2007).”
• TWO BRIGHT SUBMILLIMETER GALAXIES IN A z = 4.05 PROTOCLUSTER IN GOODS-NORTH, AND ACCURATE RADIO-INFRARED PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS (2008, background): “…evolved galaxies atz∼ 1.5−3 (Daddi et al. 2005a; Trujillo et al. 2006; Zirm et al. 2007; Tacconi et al. 2006; 2008; Cimatti et al. 2008) and have high star formation efficiencies compared to typical galaxies of similar mass (M ∼ 1010− 1011M⊙; Daddi et al. 2008; see also Bouche et al. 2007).”
• Structure and Star Formation in Galaxies out to z = 3: Evidence for Surface Density Dependent Evolution and Upsizing (2008, background): “We note that Bouché et al. (2007) confirmed the Kennicutt relation for sub-millimeter galaxies atz= 2− 3.”
• Dusty Star Forming Galaxies at High Redshift (2014, methodology): “The first major CO surveys that examined the KS relation at high-z were presented by Greve et al. (2005) and Bouché et al. (2007) which were limited to only the brightest sources (i.e. SMGs).”
• Cold streams in early massive hot haloes as the main mode of galaxy formation (2008, background): “Whereas most SMGs could be starbursts induced by major mergers, the kinematics of the SFGs indicate extended, clumpy, thick rotating disks that are incompatible with the expected compact or highly perturbed kinematics of ongoing mergers.(3,1,17,4) The puzzle is how massive galaxies form most of thei”
• COLD GASS, an IRAM legacy survey of molecular gas in massive galaxies - II. The non-universality of the molecular gas depletion time-scale (2011, background): “It is well known that gas depletion times are different in extreme starburst galaxies and merging systems in the local Universe, as well as submillimetre galaxies at high redshifts (e.g. Kennicutt 1998b; Bouché et al. 2007; Riechers et al. 2007; Bothwell et al. 2010).”
• THE IMPACT OF COLD GAS ACCRETION ABOVE A MASS FLOOR ON GALAXY SCALING RELATIONS (2009, background): “In addition, at z ∼ 2, we know that massive disky SFGs, with M⋆ > 1010.5M⊙, extend to half-light radii of R1/2 ∼ 4 kpc (Bouché et al. 2007a) and they rotate with circular velocities Vc ∼200 km s −1 (Förster Schreiber et al. 2006).”
• MERGERS AND BULGE FORMATION IN ΛCDM: WHICH MERGERS MATTER? (2009, result): “However other observations suggest that it does indeed hold (Bouché et al. 2007), and other indirect estimates yield similar results (Cresci et al. 2009; Mannucci et al. 2009).”
• CONSTRAINTS ON THE ASSEMBLY AND DYNAMICS OF GALAXIES. I. DETAILED REST-FRAME OPTICAL MORPHOLOGIES ON KILOPARSEC SCALE OF z ∼ 2 STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2010, methodology): “…field spectrometer SINFONI at the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT), we carried out the first and largest survey to date of the gas kinematics of 80 z ∼ 1 − 3 galaxies, “SINS” (Förster Schreiber et al. 2006b, 2009; Genzel et al. 2006, 2008; Bouché et al. 2007; Shapiro et al. 2008; Cresci et al. 2009).”
• Metallicity evolution, metallicity gradients, and gas fractions at z ~ 3.4 (2013, background): “…formation law observed in the local universe and whose enhanced star formation rate is simply a consequence of their higher gas content relative to local galaxies and not driven by enhanced star formation efficiency (Genzel et al. 2004; Bouché et al. 2007; Genzel et al. 2010; Daddi et al. 2010).”
• Vigorous Star Formation with Low Efficiency in Massive Disk Galaxies at z = 1.5 (2007, methodology): “First, if we apply the Schmidt-Kennicutt law (using its latest derivation from Bouche et al 2007, that includes also distant SMGs), using the UV size for the typical gas and SFR size, we estimateMgas ∼ 1011M⊙ for each galaxy.”
• VERY HIGH GAS FRACTIONS AND EXTENDED GAS RESERVOIRS IN z = 1.5 DISK GALAXIES (2009, background): “Bouché et al. (2007) used Hα resolved spectroscopy of optical and near-IR selected galaxies and identified a dichotomy between SMGs and extended disks in such velocity-size diagrams: SMGs have much higher velocities and smaller sizes.”
• The CO-H2 Conversion Factor in Disc Galaxies and Mergers (2011, background): “…asimilar Kennicutt-Schmidt solution, though with an index of unity as ppears to be observed on resolved scales in nearby galaxies (Bigiel et al. 2008), or steeper index as tentative observational (Bouché et al. 2007) and theoretical (Feldmann et al. 2011) evidencemotivates at high-redshift.”
• An analytic model of angular momentum transport by gravitational torques: from galaxies to massive black holes (2010, methodology): “This formulation produces a projected Schmidt-Kenicutt relation (i.e., Σ̇∗) similar to that measured by Bouché et al. (2007).”
• The effects of gas on morphological transformation in mergers: implications for bulge and disc demographics (2009, methodology): “…assuming the galaxies lie on a fixed size–mass relation and using the Kennicutt (1998) relation (both appear to evolve only weakly with redshift; see Bouché et al. 2007; Genzel et al. 2008; Puech et al. 2008; van Starkenburg et al. 2008), or by assuming they live on the fitted SFR-galaxy mass…”
• FORMATION OF MASSIVE GALAXIES AT HIGH REDSHIFT: COLD STREAMS, CLUMPY DISKS, AND COMPACT SPHEROIDS (2009, background): “GAS & STELLAR DISKS AT HIGH & LOW REDSHIFTS The high-redshift disks are observed to be gas rich, at the level of 50% and perhaps more (Bouché et al. 2007; Daddi & et al., 2008).”