THE SINS SURVEY OF z ∼ 2 GALAXY KINEMATICS: PROPERTIES OF THE GIANT STAR-FORMING CLUMPS

By R. Genzel, S. Newman, T. Jones, N. F. Förster Schreiber, K. Shapiro, Shy Genel, S. Lilly, A. Renzini, L. Tacconi, N. Bouché and 17 more. 2010

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We have studied the properties of giant star-forming clumps in five z ∼ 2 star-forming disks with deep SINFONI AO spectroscopy at the ESO VLT. The clumps reside in disk regions where the Toomre Q-parameter is below unity, consistent with their being bound and having formed from gravitational instability. Broad Hα/[N ii] line wings demonstrate that the clumps are launching sites of powerful outflows. The inferred outflow rates are comparable to or exceed the star formation rates, in one case by a factor of eight. Typical clumps may lose a fraction of their original gas by feedback in a few hundred million years, allowing them to migrate into the center. The most active clumps may lose much of their mass and disrupt in the disk. The clumps leave a modest imprint on the gas kinematics. Velocity gradients across the clumps are 10–40 km s−1 kpc−1, similar to the galactic rotation gradients. Given beam smearing and clump sizes, these gradients may be consistent with significant rotational support in typical clumps. Extreme clumps may not be rotationally supported; either they are not virialized or they are predominantly pressure supported. The velocity dispersion is spatially rather constant and increases only weakly with star formation surface density. The large velocity dispersions may be driven by the release of gravitational energy, either at the outer disk/accreting streams interface, and/or by the clump migration within the disk. Spatial variations in the inferred gas phase oxygen abundance are broadly consistent with inside-out growing disks, and/or with inward migration of the clumps.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Education, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

CONSTRAINTS ON THE ASSEMBLY AND DYNAMICS OF GALAXIES. II. PROPERTIES OF KILOPARSEC-SCALE CLUMPS IN REST-FRAME OPTICAL EMISSION OF z ∼ 2 STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2011, methodology): “More accurate knowledgeof absolute ages will also be important to constrain clump lifetimes, a crucial issue in the context of clump-driven scenarios for the evolution of turbulent, gas-rich disks at high redshift (see the discussion by Genzel et al. 2011, and referencs therein).”
THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM IN DISTANT STAR-FORMING GALAXIES: TURBULENT PRESSURE, FRAGMENTATION, AND CLOUD SCALING RELATIONS IN A DENSE GAS DISK AT z = 2.3 (2011, background): “…have shown that high velocity dispersions are a common feature of high redshift galaxies (∼4–10× higher than comparably luminous local galaxies), possibly related to the high gas fractions and star-formation rates (e.g. Lehnert et al. 2009; Förster Schreiber et al. 2009; Genzel et al. 2011).”
The SILCC (SImulating the LifeCycle of molecular Clouds) project – I. Chemical evolution of the supernova-driven ISM (2014, background): “…we do not include at the moment – is potentially important, in particular for gas-rich disc models (Shetty & Ostriker 2012), which resemble the conditions within the Galactic Center or in high-redshift, star-forming galaxies (Förster Schreiber et al. 2011; Genzel et al. 2011; Fisher et al. 2013).”
THE KMOS3D SURVEY: DESIGN, FIRST RESULTS, AND THE EVOLUTION OF GALAXY KINEMATICS FROM 0.7 ⩽ z ⩽ 2.7 (2014, methodology): “Previous analyses of these properties in z & 1 kinematic data sets have been either inconclusive (Erb et al. 2004) or do not show a strong trend (Genzel et al. 2011).”
An analytic model for the evolution of the stellar, gas and metal content of galaxies (2011, background): “For instance, η has been constrained in high-z galaxies to have a value of order unity or more (e.g. Steidel et al. 2010; Genzel et al. 2011). αZ can be constrained by examining metallicities in the outskirts of low-z galaxies (e.g. Bresolin et al. 2009; Moran et al. 2011).”
The GALAH survey: scientific motivation (2015, background): “From extragalactic studies, we know that thick discs are common in spiral galaxies, with varying degrees of kinematic connection to their corresponding thin discs (e.g. Yoachim & Dalcanton 2008) and a potential correspondence to massive star clusters in redshift ∼2 galaxies (Genzel et al. 2011).”
THE LONG LIVES OF GIANT CLUMPS AND THE BIRTH OF OUTFLOWS IN GAS-RICH GALAXIES AT HIGH REDSHIFT (2013, background): “Observed outflows and stellar populations The recently detected outflows in giant clumps at z ≈ 2 have gas outflow rates of ≈ 1-2 ×SFR, with perhaps extreme cases up to 8×SFR (Genzel et al. 2011, Newman et al. 2012a).”
Radiative feedback and the low efficiency of galaxy formation in low-mass haloes at high redshift (2013, background): “Instead, these giant clumps can drive a steady wind over many free-fall times (Dekel & Krumholz 2013), as observed in high-z clumpy discs (Genzel et al. 2011).”
The ATLAS3D project – XX. Mass–size and mass–σ distributions of early-type galaxies: bulge fraction drives kinematics, mass-to-light ratio, molecular gas fraction and stellar initial mass function (2012, background): “They are characterized by giant gas clumps (Elmegreen et al. 2007; Genzel et al. 2011), have high gas fractions (Daddi et al. 2010; Tacconi et al. 2010), possess large velocity dispersion and are dominated by turbulent motions (Förster Schreiber et al. 2006, 2009; Genzel et al. 2006, 2008; Law et…”
Globular clusters as the relics of regular star formation in ‘normal’ high-redshift galaxies (2015, background): “(iv) In particular, the gas-rich discs ofz > 2 galaxies exhibit clumpy morphologies (Elmegreen & Elmegreen 2005; Genzel et al. 2011; Tacconi et al. 2013), suggesting widespread gravitational instabilities.”
Toy models for galaxy formation versus simulations (2013, background): “This massive penetration is in general agreement with earlier estimates based on the MareNostrum simulation with lower resolution (Dekel et al. 2009; Danovich et al. 2012) and with the high SFR observed in massive galaxies at z ∼ 2 (Genzel et al. 2008, 2011).”
Introducing the Illustris Project: the evolution of galaxy populations across cosmic time (2014, background): “Along with the increased gas surface densities, galaxies at high redshift and in particular at high masses tend to be ‘clumpy’, featuring kpc-scale local gas density peaks, which resemble observed massive galaxy discs at z ∼ 2–3 (Genzel et al. 2011).”
A CANDELS–3D-HST SYNERGY: RESOLVED STAR FORMATION PATTERNS AT 0.7 < z < 1.5 (2013, background): “Indeed, such features, and more generally irregular morphologies, have been abundantly reported in high-redshift SFGs (albeit on monochromatic, and often rest-UV or Hα images; see, e.g., Elmegreen et al. 2004, 2009a; Genzel et al. 2008, 2011).”
PHIBSS: Unified Scaling Relations of Gas Depletion Time and Molecular Gas Fractions (2017, background): “The effect will be less at high-z where the entire galaxy is globally unstable to star formation (Genzel et al. 2008, 2011, Elbaz et al. 2011).”
How Stellar Feedback Simultaneously Regulates Star Formation and Drives Outflows (2015, result): “The reader may object that this is inconsistent with observations of ‘clumpy’ galaxies at z ∼ 2 (e.g. Genzel et al. 2011).”
Cool Gas in High-Redshift Galaxies (2013, background): “This cool gas may form a thick, turbulent, rotating disk (Genzel et al. 2011, 2008, 2006; Daddi et al. 2010).”
Four phases of angular-momentum buildup in high-z galaxies: from cosmic-web streams through an extended ring to disc and bulge (2014, background): “Furthermore, the simulated mass-loading factor of the galactic outflow rate with respect to the SFR is typically η 1, not reproducing some of the observed strong outflows with mass loading factors of η 1 (Steidel et al. 2010; Genzel et al. 2011; Dekel & Krumholz 2013).”
EVIDENCE FOR WIDE-SPREAD ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS-DRIVEN OUTFLOWS IN THE MOST MASSIVE z ∼ 1–2 STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2014, methodology): “The blueshift of the broad Hα emission relative to the narrow emission in Figure 4 (–130 (±40) km s−1, second row and second column of Table 2) is also consistent with an outflow interpretation, because of the plausible presence of internal differential extinction (Genzel et al. 2011).”