English

Studying the first galaxies with ALMA

Astrophysics 2008-11-26 v1

Abstract

We discuss observations of the first galaxies, within cosmic reionization, at centimeter and millimeter wavelengths. We present a summary of current observations of the host galaxies of the most distant QSOs (z6z \sim 6). These observations reveal the gas, dust, and star formation in the host galaxies on kpc-scales. These data imply an enriched ISM in the QSO host galaxies within 1 Gyr of the big bang, and are consistent with models of coeval supermassive black hole and spheroidal galaxy formation in major mergers at high redshift. Current instruments are limited to studying truly pathologic objects at these redshifts, meaning hyper-luminous infrared galaxies (LFIR1013L_{FIR} \sim 10^{13} L_\odot). ALMA will provide the one to two orders of magnitude improvement in millimeter astronomy required to study normal star forming galaxies (ie. Ly-α\alpha emitters) at z6z \sim 6. ALMA will reveal, at sub-kpc spatial resolution, the thermal gas and dust -- the fundamental fuel for star formation -- in galaxies into cosmic reionization.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0703799,
  title  = {Studying the first galaxies with ALMA},
  author = {C. L. Carilli and F. Walter and R. Wang and A. Wootten and K. Menten and F. Bertoldi and E. Schinnerer and P. Cox and A. Beelen and A. Omont},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0703799},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

to appear in Science with ALMA: a new era for Astrophysics}, ed. R. Bachiller (Springer: Berlin); 5 pages, 7 figures

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