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Submillimeter Follow-up of WISE-Selected Hyperluminous Galaxies

Authors :
Chao-Wei Tsai
Benjamin J. Weiner
Carol J. Lonsdale
Roger L. Griffith
S. Adam Stanford
Sara Petty
Dominic J. Benford
Neal J. Evans
Shane Bussmann
Thomas H. Jarrett
Jingwen Wu
Daniel Stern
Lin Yan
Roberto J. Assef
Edward L. Wright
Andrew Blain
Sean E. Lake
Peter Eisenhardt
Roc M. Cutri
Jack Sayers
Carrie Bridge
Julia M. Comerford
Jeonghee Rho
Publication Year :
2012

Abstract

We have used the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) to follow-up a sample of WISE-selected, hyperluminous galaxies, so called W1W2-dropout galaxies. This is a rare (~ 1000 all-sky) population of galaxies at high redshift (peaks at z=2-3), that are faint or undetected by WISE at 3.4 and 4.6 um, yet are clearly detected at 12 and 22 um. The optical spectra of most of these galaxies show significant AGN activity. We observed 14 high-redshift (z > 1.7) W1W2-dropout galaxies with SHARC-II at 350 to 850 um, with 9 detections; and observed 18 with Bolocam at 1.1 mm, with five detections. Warm Spitzer follow-up of 25 targets at 3.6 and 4.5 um, as well as optical spectra of 12 targets are also presented in the paper. Combining WISE data with observations from warm Spitzer and CSO, we constructed their mid-IR to millimeter spectral energy distributions (SEDs). These SEDs have a consistent shape, showing significantly higher mid-IR to submm ratios than other galaxy templates, suggesting a hotter dust temperature. We estimate their dust temperatures to be 60-120 K using a single-temperature model. Their infrared luminosities are well over 10^{13} Lsun. These SEDs are not well fitted with existing galaxy templates, suggesting they are a new population with very high luminosity and hot dust. They are likely among the most luminous galaxies in the Universe. We argue that they are extreme cases of luminous, hot dust-obscured galaxies (DOGs), possibly representing a short evolutionary phase during galaxy merging and evolution. A better understanding of their long-wavelength properties needs ALMA as well as Herschel data.<br />Will be Published on Sep 1, 2012 by ApJ

Details

Language :
English
Database :
OpenAIRE
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....8e7f40f7abc32bdf20a96500cabaae15