Dust continuum, CO, and  [C i] 1 − 0 lines: self-consistent H2 mass estimates and the possibility of globally CO-'dark' galaxies at z = 0.35. Issue 2 (13th November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dunne, L; Maddox, S J; Vlahakis, C; Gomez, H L
• Is Part Of: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Volume 501:Issue 2(2021)
• Page Start: 2573
• Page End: 2607
• Publication Date: 2020-11-13
• Subjects: Galaxies: ISM -- galaxies: interactions -- submillimetre: galaxies -- galaxies: ISM; Astronomy -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa3526
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0035-8711

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We present Atacama Large Millimetre Array observations of a small but statistically complete sample of 12 250- μ m-selected galaxies at z = 0.35 designed to measure their dust submillimeter continuum emission as well as their $\rm {^{12}CO(1-0)}$ and atomic carbon [C i ]( 3 P1 − 3 P0 ) spectral lines. This is the first sample of galaxies with global measures of all three H 2 -mass tracers and that shows star formation rates (4–26 $\rm M_{\odot}$ yr −1 ) and infrared luminosities ($1\!-\!6\times 10^{11}\, \rm L_{\odot}$ ) typical of star-forming galaxies in their era. We find a surprising diversity of morphology and kinematic structure; one third of the sample have evidence for interaction with nearby smaller galaxies, several sources have disjoint dust and gas morphology. Moreover, two galaxies have very high $L^{\prime }_{\rm C\, {\small I}}$ / $L^{\prime }_{\rm {CO}}$ ratios for their global molecular gas reservoirs; if confirmed, such extreme intensity ratios in a sample of dust-selected, massive star-forming galaxies present a challenge to our understanding of interstellar medium. Finally, we use the emission of the three molecular gas tracers, to determine the carbon abundance, $\rm {X_{C\, {\small I}}}$ , and CO–$\rm {H_2}$ conversion αCO in our sample, using a weak prior that the gas-to-dust ratio is similar to that of the Milky Way for these massive and metal-rich galaxies. Using a likelihood method that simultaneously uses all three gas tracer measurements, we find mean values and errors on the mean of $\langle\alpha _{\rm {CO}}\rangle = 3.0\pm 0.5\, \rm {M}_{\odot }\, (\rm{K}\, \rm{kms}^{-1}\, \rm{pc}^2)^{-1}$ and $\langle \rm{X}_{\rm{CI}} \rangle =1.6\pm 0.1\times 10^{-5}$ (or $\alpha _{\rm{CI}} = 18.8\, \rm {M}_{\odot }\, (\rm{K}\, \rm{kms}^{-1}\, \rm{pc}^2)^{-1}$ ) and $\delta _{\rm {GDR}} = 128\pm 16$ (or $\alpha _{850} = 5.9\times 10^{12}\, \rm {W}\, \rm{Hz}^{-1}\, \rm {M}_{\odot }\, ^{-1}$ ), where our starting assumption is that these metal-rich galaxies have an average gas-to-dust ratio similar to that of the Milky Way centred on $\rm{\delta} _{\rm {GDR}} =135$ .