THE RADIAL DISTRIBUTION OF STAR FORMATION IN GALAXIES AT z {approx} 1 FROM THE 3D-HST SURVEY
- Astronomy Department, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511 (United States)
- European Southern Observatory, Alonson de Cordova 3107, Casilla 19001, Vitacura, Santiago (Chile)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706 (United States)
- Astrophysics Science Division, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), Koenigstuhl 17, D-69117, Heidelberg (Germany)
- Max-Planck-Institut fuer extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse, D-85748 Garching (Germany)
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Leiden (Netherlands)
- Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
- Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 (United States)
The assembly of galaxies can be described by the distribution of their star formation as a function of cosmic time. Thanks to the WFC3 grism on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) it is now possible to measure this beyond the local Universe. Here we present the spatial distribution of H{alpha} emission for a sample of 54 strongly star-forming galaxies at z {approx} 1 in the 3D-HST Treasury survey. By stacking the H{alpha} emission, we find that star formation occurred in approximately exponential distributions at z {approx} 1, with a median Sersic index of n = 1.0 {+-} 0.2. The stacks are elongated with median axis ratios of b/a = 0.58 {+-} 0.09 in H{alpha} consistent with (possibly thick) disks at random orientation angles. Keck spectra obtained for a subset of eight of the galaxies show clear evidence for rotation, with inclination corrected velocities of 90-330 km s{sup -1}. The most straightforward interpretation of our results is that star formation in strongly star-forming galaxies at z {approx} 1 generally occurred in disks. The disks appear to be 'scaled-up' versions of nearby spiral galaxies: they have EW(H{alpha}) {approx} 100 A out to the solar orbit and they have star formation surface densities above the threshold for driving galactic scale winds.
- OSTI ID:
- 22078318
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 763, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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