Bibcode
Robson, E. I.; Ivison, R. J.; Smail, Ian; Holland, W. S.; Geach, J. E.; Gibb, A. G.; Riechers, D.; Ade, P. A. R.; Bintley, D.; Bock, J.; Chapin, E. L.; Chapman, S. C.; Clements, D. L.; Conley, A.; Cooray, A.; Dunlop, J. S.; Farrah, D.; Fich, M.; Fu, Hai; Jenness, T.; Laporte, N.; Oliver, S. J.; Omont, A.; Pérez-Fournon, I.; Scott, Douglas; Swinbank, A. M.; Wardlow, J.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 793, Issue 1, article id. 11, 6 pp. (2014).
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9
2014
Journal
Citations
15
Refereed citations
15
Description
We describe a search for submillimeter emission in the vicinity of one
of the most distant, luminous galaxies known, HerMES FLS3, at z = 6.34,
exploiting it as a signpost to a potentially biased region of the early
universe, as might be expected in hierarchical structure formation
models. Imaging to the confusion limit with the innovative, wide-field
submillimeter bolometer camera, SCUBA-2, we are sensitive to colder
and/or less luminous galaxies in the surroundings of HFLS3. We use the
Millennium Simulation to illustrate that HFLS3 may be expected to have
companions if it is as massive as claimed, but find no significant
evidence from the surface density of SCUBA-2 galaxies in its vicinity,
or their colors, that HFLS3 marks an overdensity of dusty, star-forming
galaxies. We cannot rule out the presence of dusty neighbors with
confidence, but deeper 450 μm imaging has the potential to more
tightly constrain the redshifts of nearby galaxies, at least one of
which likely lies at z >~ 5. If associations with HFLS3 can be ruled
out, this could be taken as evidence that HFLS3 is less biased than a
simple extrapolation of the Millennium Simulation may imply. This could
suggest either that it represents a rare short-lived, but highly
luminous, phase in the evolution of an otherwise typical galaxy, or that
this system has suffered amplification due to a foreground gravitational
lens and so is not as intrinsically luminous as claimed.
Related projects
Formation and Evolution of Galaxies: Observations in Infrared and other Wavelengths
This IAC research group carries out several extragalactic projects in different spectral ranges, using space as well as ground-based telescopes, to study the cosmological evolution of galaxies and the origin of nuclear activity in active galaxies. The group is a member of the international consortium which built the SPIRE instrument for the
Ismael
Pérez Fournon