English

[CII] emission in z ~ 6 strongly lensed, star-forming galaxies

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2016-07-27 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

The far-infrared fine-structure line [CII] at 1900.5\,GHz is known to be one of the brightest cooling lines in local galaxies, and therefore it has been suggested to be an efficient tracer for star-formation in very high-redshift galaxies. However, recent results for galaxies at z>6z>6 have yielded numerous non-detections in star-forming galaxies, except for quasars and submillimeter galaxies. We report the results of ALMA observations of two lensed, star-forming galaxies at z=6.029z = 6.029 and z=6.703z=6.703. The galaxy A383-5.1 (star formation rate [SFR] of 3.2 M_\odot yr1^{-1} and magnification of μ=11.4±1.9\mu = 11.4\pm1.9) shows a line detection with L[CII]=8.9×106L_{\rm [CII]} = 8.9\times10^{6} L_\odot, making it the lowest L[CII]L_{\rm [CII]} detection at z>6z>6. For MS0451-H (SFR = 0.4 M_\odot yr1^{-1} and μ=100±20\mu = 100\pm20) we provide an upper limit of L[CII]<3×105L_{\rm [CII]} < 3\times10^{5} L_\odot, which is 1\,dex below the local SFR-L[CII]L_{\rm [CII]} relations. The results are consistent with predictions for low-metallicity galaxies at z>6z>6, however, other effects could also play a role in terms of decreasing L[CII]L_{\rm [CII]}. The detection of A383-5.1 is encouraging and suggests that detections are possible, but much fainter than initially predicted.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1603.02277,
  title  = {[CII] emission in z ~ 6 strongly lensed, star-forming galaxies},
  author = {Kirsten K. Knudsen and Johan Richard and Jean-Paul Kneib and Mathilde Jauzac and Benjamin Clement and Guillaume Drouart and Eiichi Egami and Lukas Lindroos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.02277},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

5 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters