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Sub-mm Clues to Elliptical Galaxy Formation
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Dunlop, James S. |
| Copyright Year | 2000 |
| Abstract | There is growing evidence that, at the S 850µm < 1mJy level, the sub-mm galaxy population (and hence a potentially significant fraction of the sub-mm background) is associated with the star-forming Lyman-break population already detected at optical wavelengths. However, the implied star-formation rates in such objects (typically 3 − 30M ⊙ yr −1) fall one or two orders of magnitude short of the level of star-forming activity required to produce the most massive elliptical galaxies on a timescale ∼ 1Gyr. If a significant fraction of massive ellipticals did form the bulk of their stars in short-lived massive starbursts at high redshift, then they should presumably be found among the brighter, S 850µm ≃ 10mJy sub-mm sources which are undoubtedly not part of the Lyman-break population. A first powerful clue that this is indeed the case comes from our major SCUBA survey of radio galaxies, which indicates that massive dust-enshrouded star-formation in at least this subset of massive ellipticals is largely confined to z > 2.5, with a mean redshift z ≃ 3.5. While radio selection always raises concerns about bias, I argue that our current knowledge of the brightest (S 850µm ≃ 10mJy) sub-mm sources detected in unbiased SCUBA imaging surveys indicates that they are also largely confined to this same high-z regime. Consequently, while the most recent number counts imply such extreme sources can contribute only 5-10% of the sub-mm background, their comoving number density (in the redshift band 3 < z < 5) is ≃ 1−2×10 −5 Mpc −3 , sufficient to account for the formation of all ellipticals of comparable mass to radio galaxies (≥ 4L ⋆) in the present-day universe. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0011077v1.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Command & Conquer:Yuri's Revenge GUCY2C protein, human Redshift Stars, Celestial Subgroup Unbiased rendering wavelength |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
