OPTICAL-FAINT, FAR-INFRARED-BRIGHT HERSCHEL SOURCES IN THE CANDELS FIELDS: ULTRA-LUMINOUS INFRARED GALAXIES AT z > 1 AND THE EFFECT OF SOURCE BLENDING
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211 (United States)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, 136 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854 (United States)
- University of the Western Cape, 7535 Bellville, Cape Town (South Africa)
- Departamento de Astrofísica, Facultad de CC. Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, E-28040 Madrid (Spain)
- Observatoire de Genève, Université de Genève, 51 Ch. des Maillettes, 1290 Versoix (Switzerland)
- Joint ALMA Observatory, Alonso de Cordova 3107, Vitacura, Santiago (Chile)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506 (United States)
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697 (United States)
- Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
The Herschel very wide field surveys have charted hundreds of square degrees in multiple far-IR (FIR) bands. While the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is currently the best resource for optical counterpart identifications over such wide areas, it does not detect a large number of Herschel FIR sources and leaves their nature undetermined. As a test case, we studied seven ''SDSS-invisible'', very bright 250 μm sources (S {sub 250} > 55 mJy) in the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey fields where we have a rich multi-wavelength data set. We took a new approach to decompose the FIR sources, using the near-IR or the optical images directly for position priors. This is an improvement over the previous decomposition efforts where the priors are from mid-IR data that still suffer from the problem of source blending. We found that in most cases the single Herschel sources are made of multiple components that are not necessarily at the same redshifts. Our decomposition succeeded in identifying and extracting their major contributors. We show that these are all ultra-luminous infrared galaxies at z ∼ 1-2 whose high L {sub IR} is mainly due to dust-obscured star formation. Most of them would not be selected as submillimeter galaxies. They all have complicated morphologies indicative of mergers or violent instability, and their stellar populations are heterogeneous in terms of stellar masses, ages, and formation histories. Their current ultra-luminous infrared galaxy phases are of various degrees of importance in their stellar mass assembly. Our practice provides a promising starting point for developing an automatic routine to reliably study bright Herschel sources.
- OSTI ID:
- 22340208
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series, Vol. 213, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0067-0049
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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