THE STELLAR MASS CONTENT OF SUBMILLIMETER-SELECTED GALAXIES

By L. Hainline, A. Blain, I. Smail, D. M. Alexander, Lee Armus, S. Chapman, R. Ivison. 2010

157 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a new study of stellar mass in a sample of ∼70 submillimeter-selected galaxies (SMGs) with accurate spectroscopic redshifts. We fit combinations of stellar population synthesis models and power laws to the galaxies' observed-frame optical through mid-IR spectral energy distributions (SEDs) to separate stellar emission from non-stellar near-IR continuum. The availability of spectroscopic redshifts significantly enhances our ability to determine unambiguously not only the mass and luminosity of SMGs, but also the presence and contribution of non-stellar emission to their SEDs. By separating the stellar emission from the non-stellar near-IR continuum, we find that ∼50% of our sample have non-stellar contributions of less than 10% in rest-frame H band and ∼10% of our sample have non-stellar contributions greater than 50%. We find that the K-band luminosity of the non-stellar continuum emission is correlated with hard X-ray luminosity, indicating an active galactic nucleus (AGN) origin of the emission. Upon subtracting this AGN-contributed continuum component from all of the galaxies in our sample, we determine a lower median stellar mass for SMGs than previous studies, ∼7 × 1010 M☉. We use constraints of the starburst timescale from molecular gas studies to estimate the amount of fading our sample would undergo if they passively evolve after the starburst terminates. The results suggest that typical SMGs, while among the most massive galaxies at z ∼ 2, are likely to produce descendants of similar mass and luminosity to L* galaxies in the local universe.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a867db083b2427d6d9688c69cdc6b0181e863336

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. D. M. Alexander
4. D. Narayanan
5. R. Dav'e
6. Thomas J. Cox
7. R. Somerville
8. F. Walter

In Instrumentation

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. D. M. Alexander
4. D. Narayanan
5. Thomas J. Cox
6. R. Dav'e
7. E. Daddi
8. R. Somerville

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

1. E. Daddi
2. L. Hernquist
3. F. Walter
4. D. Elbaz
5. F. Mannucci
6. B. Magnelli
7. D. Narayanan
8. C. Casey

Citations in the corpus

• The stellar masses and specific star-formation rates of submillimetre galaxies (2011, background): “…with a median value M∗ = 3.5 × 10 11 M⊙ (see also Hatsukade et al. 2010; Ikarashi et al. 2011; Santini et al. 1 2010; Tamura et al. 2010), whereas Hainline et al. (2011) have reported values, based on the same SMGs, which are systematically lower by a factor of ≃ 6 (median M∗ = 5– 7 × 1010…”
• EVIDENCE FOR A CLUMPY, ROTATING GAS DISK IN A SUBMILLIMETER GALAXY AT z = 4 (2012, background): “Their huge far– infrared (FIR) luminosities (∼1013 L⊙) are believed to be primarily driven by intense (∼103M⊙ yr−1) star formation (e.g., Alexander et al. 2005, 2003), adding to their already significant stellar masses (e.g., Borys et al. 2005; Hainline et al. 2011).”
• AN ALMA SURVEY OF SUB-MILLIMETER GALAXIES IN THE EXTENDED CHANDRA DEEP FIELD SOUTH: PHYSICAL PROPERTIES DERIVED FROM ULTRAVIOLET-TO-RADIO MODELING (2015, methodology): “…redshift, implying that these intense starbursts have to be powered by extreme events such as major merger (Daddi et al. 2007; Engel et al. 2010; Hainline et al. 2011; Magnelli et al. 2012), while some cosmological simulations establish SMGs simply as the high-mass end of the normal galaxy…”
• Energetic galaxy-wide outflows in high-redshift ultraluminous infrared galaxies hosting AGN activity (2012, background): “By taking anestimated galaxy mass of 1011 M⊙ (typical of these sources; e.g., Engel et al. 2010; Wardlow et al. 2011; Hainline et al. 2011) the escape velocity at a distance of 4 kpc would bevesc≈460 km s−1 (see Fig.”
• THE SCUBA-2 COSMOLOGY LEGACY SURVEY: ALMA RESOLVES THE REST-FRAME FAR-INFRARED EMISSION OF SUB-MILLIMETER GALAXIES (2014, background): “In particular, the stellar masses of SMGs have been shown to be highly dependent on the assumed star formation history, with systematic uncertainties of a factor of around five on individual measurements (see Hainline et al. 2011; Micha lowski et al. 2012).”
• The LABOCA survey of the Extended Chandra Deep Field-South: clustering of submillimetre galaxies (2011, background): “…QSOs (e.g. Croom et al. 2004; Kotilainen et al. 2009) or strong dust obscuration and potentially complex star formation histories for the SMGs (e.g. Hainline et al. 2011; Wardlow et al. 2011; but see also Dunlop 2011; Michałowski et al. 2011), while the details of the high-redshift star formation…”
• AN ALMA SURVEY OF SUBMILLIMETER GALAXIES IN THE EXTENDED CHANDRA DEEP FIELD SOUTH: THE REDSHIFT DISTRIBUTION AND EVOLUTION OF SUBMILLIMETER GALAXIES (2013, methodology): “18 Photometric redshift distribution of ALESS SMGs of SMGs have significant contamination in MH due to AGN activity (Hainline et al. 2011), which we do not see for the ALESS SMGs.”
• A Herschel view of the far-infrared properties of submillimetre galaxies (2012, background): “…found that SMGs lie at high-redshift,z ∼ 2 (Hughes et al. 1998; Carilli & Yun 1999; Barger et al. 2000; Smail et al. 2000; Chapman et al. 2005; Pope et al. 2006; Wardlow et al. 2011), and are massive systems (M∗ ∼ 1010-1011 M⊙, Swinbank et al. 2004; Tacconi et al. 2006, 2008; Hainline et al. 2011).”
• Submillimetre galaxies in a hierarchical universe: number counts, redshift distribution, and implications for the IMF (2012, background): “They have stellar masses of ∼1011 M , although recent estimates (Michałowski et al. 2010, 2012; Hainline et al. 2011) differ by a factor of ∼6, and typical gas fractions of ∼40 per cent (Greve et al. 2005; Tacconi et al. 2006, 2008; but cf. Narayanan, Bothwell & Davé 2012a).”
• An ALMA survey of the SCUBA-2 CLS UDS field: physical properties of 707 sub-millimetre galaxies (2019, background): “The largest difference is in the stellar mass, where MAGPHYS predicts a stellar mass that is 0.46 ± 0.10 dex lower than the ‘true’ stellar mass in EAGLE, consistent with previous studies of systematic uncertainty in SMG masses (e.g. Hainline et al. 2011).”
• Dusty Star Forming Galaxies at High Redshift (2014, methodology): “In 2011, two nearly contemporaneous papers came out with starkly different results for the stellar masses of the same sample of SMGs. Hainline et al. (2011) examined ∼70 SMGs, and found that ∼10% of their sample had substantial contributions to the SED from AGN, much like those analyzed in Borys et…”
• GOODS-ALMA: 1.1 mm galaxy survey (2018, background): “> 7× 1010M ; e.g. Chapman et al. 2005; Hainline et al. 2011; Simpson et al. 2014), gas-rich (fgas > 50%; e.g. Daddi et al. 2010), with huge star formation rates (SFR) - often greater than 100 M year−1 (e.g. Magnelli et al. 2012; Swinbank et al. 2014) - making them significant contributors to the…”
• SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS OF LOCAL LUMINOUS AND ULTRALUMINOUS INFRARED GALAXIES (2012, background): “H-band is usually selected for stellar mass conversion because it is at or near the photospheric peak of the stellar SED, and is thought not to be contaminated by hot dust emission from AGN (Hainline et al. 2011).”
• A fundamental relation between the metallicity, gas content, and stellar mass of local galaxies (2013, methodology): “We use a sample of ‘submillimetre galaxies’ (SMGs), which have metallicities estimated using their [N II]λ6584/Hα ratio (using data from Swinbank et al. 2006), molecular gas masses taken from Bothwell et al. (2013) and stellar masses derived by Hainline et al. (2011).”
• A survey of molecular gas in luminous sub-millimetre galaxies (2012, background): “Together with their high stellar masses (∼1011 M ; e.g. Hainline et al. 2011) this suggests this population reside in some of most massive dark matter haloes in the high-redshift Universe.”
• WHAT DOES A SUBMILLIMETER GALAXY SELECTION ACTUALLY SELECT? THE DEPENDENCE OF SUBMILLIMETER FLUX DENSITY ON STAR FORMATION RATE AND DUST MASS (2010, background): “The masses of SMGs are hotly debated, with different authors finding masses discrepant by ∼6× for the same SMGs (Michałowski et al. 2010a, 2010b; Hainline et al. 2010).”
• COMBINED CO AND DUST SCALING RELATIONS OF DEPLETION TIME AND MOLECULAR GAS FRACTIONS WITH COSMIC TIME, SPECIFIC STAR-FORMATION RATE, AND STELLAR MASS (2014, unknown): “…6 in Genzel et al. 2010), as well as to the inferred stellar masses, as is demonstrated by the up to one order of magnitude varying estimates of stellar masses in SMGs in different publications (Hainline et al. 2009, 2011, Michalowski et al. 2012, 2014, Davè et al. 2010, Bussmann et al. 2012).”
• An ALMA survey of sub-millimetre Galaxies in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South: the far-infrared properties of SMGs (2013, result): “…to a stellar mass of Mstar =(8± 1)× 10 10 M⊙ (for an appropriate LH /M⋆ ratio), consistent with previous estimates of the stellar masses of SMGs (e.g. Hainline et al. 2011) Simpson et al. (2013) used these photometric redshifts to search for differences in the redshift distribution of…”