Galaxy formation and evolution

Abstract:

The Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES) is a legacy programme designed to map a set of nested fields totalling ~380deg2. Fields range in size from 0.01 to ~20deg2, using the Herschel-Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) (at 250, 350 and 500μm) and the Herschel-Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) (at 100 and 160μm), with an additional wider component of 270deg2 with SPIRE alone. These bands cover the peak of the redshifted thermal spectral energy distribution from interstellar dust and thus capture the reprocessed optical and ultraviolet radiation from star formation that has been absorbed by dust, and are critical for forming a complete multiwavelength understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. The survey will detect of the order of 100000 galaxies at 5σ in some of the best-studied fields in the sky. Additionally, HerMES is closely coordinated with the PACS Evolutionary Probe survey. Making maximum use of the full spectrum of ancillary data, from radio to X-ray wavelengths, it is designed to facilitate redshift determination, rapidly identify unusual objects and understand the relationships between thermal emission from dust and other processes. Scientific questions HerMES will be used to answer include the total infrared emission of galaxies, the evolution of the luminosity function, the clustering properties of dusty galaxies and the properties of populations of galaxies which lie below the confusion limit through lensing and statistical techniques. This paper defines the survey observations and data products, outlines the primary scientific goals of the HerMES team, and reviews some of the early results. © 2012 The Authors. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2012 RAS.

Abstract:

We present the results of new near-IR spectroscopic observations of passive galaxies at z ≳ 1.4 in a concentration of BzK-selected galaxies in the COSMOS field. The observations have been conducted with Subaru/MOIRCS, and have resulted in absorption lines and/or continuum detection for 18 out of 34 objects. This allows us to measure spectroscopic redshifts for a sample that is almost complete to K AB = 21. COSMOS photometric redshifts are found in fair agreement overall with the spectroscopic redshifts, with a standard deviation of 0.05; however, 30% of objects have photometric redshifts systematically underestimated by up to 25%. We show that these systematic offsets in photometric redshifts can be removed by using these objects as a training set. All galaxies fall in four distinct redshift spikes at z = 1.43, 1.53, 1.67, and 1.82, with this latter one including seven galaxies. SED fits to broadband fluxes indicate stellar masses in the range of 4-40 × 10 10 M and that star formation was quenched 1Gyr before the cosmic epoch at which they are observed. The spectra of several individual galaxies have allowed us to measure their HδF indices and the strengths of the 4000 Å break, which confirms their identification as passive galaxies, as does a composite spectrum resulting from the co-addition of 17 individual spectra. The effective radii of the galaxies have been measured on the COSMOS HST/ACS i F814W-band image, confirming the coexistence at these redshifts of passive galaxies, which are substantially more compact than their local counterparts with others that follow the local effective radius-stellar mass relation. For the galaxy with the best signal-to-noise spectrum we were able to measure a velocity dispersion of 270 ± 105kms-1 (error bar including systematic errors), indicating that this galaxy lies closely on the virial relation given its stellar mass and effective radius. © 2012 The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.