Deep Submillimeter Surveys: Luminous Infrared Galaxies at High Redshift
Abstract
Deep surveys at 850microns from Mauna Kea using the SCUBA camera on the JCMT appear to have discovered a substantial population of ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIGs: L_ir > 10^{12} L_sun). The cumulative space density of these sources (~10,000 per sq.deg with S_850 > 1mJy) is sufficient to account for nearly all of the extragalactic background light at submillimeter wavelengths. Current estimates of the redshift distribution suggest a peak in the comoving space density of SCUBA sources at z = 1-3, similar to what is observed for QSOs and radio galaxies. The luminosity density in the far-infrared/submillimeter exceeds that in the UV by factors of 3-10 over this redshift range, implying that as much as 80-90% of the "activity" in galaxies at z < 4 is hidden by dust. The SCUBA sources plausibly represent the primary epoch in the formation of spheroids and massive black holes triggered by major mergers of large gas-rich disks.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9904292,
title = {Deep Submillimeter Surveys: Luminous Infrared Galaxies at High Redshift},
author = {D. B. Sanders},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9904292},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
LaTex, 14 pages with 9 embedded .eps figures. To appear in ``Space Infrared Telescopes and Related Science", 32nd COSPAR workshop, Nagoya, Japan 1998, ed. T. Matsumoto, T. de Graauw