Prof. Dimitra Rigopoulou

Abstract:

A deep mid- and far-infrared survey in the extended Groth strip (EGS) area gives 3.6 to 8 μm flux densities or upper limits for 253 Lyman break galaxies (LBGs). The LBGs are a diverse population but with properties correlated with luminosity. The LBGs show a factor of 30 range in indicated stellar mass and a factor of 10 range in apparent dust content relative to stellar mass. About 5% of LBGs are luminous at all wavelengths, with powerful emission at rest 6 μm. In the rest 0.9 to 2 μm spectral range these galaxies have stellar spectral slopes with no sign of an AGN power-law component, suggesting that their emission is mainly powered by intensive star formation. Galaxies in this luminous population share the infrared properties of cold Submillimeter Common-User Bolometric Array (SCUBA) sources: both are massive and dusty starburst galaxies at 2 < z < 3; their stellar mass is larger than 10 11 M⊙. We suggest that these galaxies are the progenitors of present-day giant elliptical galaxies, with a substantial fraction of their stars already formed at z ≈ 3. © 2005. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

Abstract:

We present low resolution multi-object spectroscopy of an I-band magnitude limited (IAB ≃ 23-23.5) sample of galaxies located in an area centered on the Hubble Deep Field-South (HDFS). The observations were obtained using the Focal Reducer/low dispersion Spectrograph (FORS) on the ESO Very Large Telescope. Thirty-two primary spectroscopic targets in the HST-WFPC2 HDFS were supplemented with galaxies detected in the Infrared Space Observatory's survey of the HDFS and the ESO Imaging Deep Survey to comprise a sample of 100 galaxies for spectroscopic observations. Based on detections of several emission lines, such as [OII]λ3727, Hβ and [OIII]λ5007, or of other spectroscopic features, we measured accurate redshifts for 50 objects in the central HDFS and flanking fields. The redshift range of the current sample of galaxies is 0.6-1.2, with a median redshift of 1.13 (at I ≃ 23.5 not corrected for completeness). The sample is dominated by starburst galaxies with only a small fraction of ellipticals (∼ 10%). For the emission line objects, the extinction corrected [OII]λ3727 line strengths yield estimates of star formation rates in the range 0.5-30 M⊙yr-1. We used the present data to derive the [OII]λ3727 luminosity function up to redshift of 1.2. When combined with [OII]λ3727 luminosity densities for the local and high redshift Universe, our results confirm the steep rise in the star formation rate (SFR) to z ≃ 1.3. © ESO 2005.