HerMES: Candidate High-redshift Galaxies Discovered with Herschel/SPIRE

Creators: Dowell, C. Darren; Bock, J.; Bridge, C.; Cooray, A.; Nguyen, H. T.; Riechers, D.; Sayers, J.; Schulz, B.; Shupe, D. L.; Vieira, J. D.; Viero, M.; Xu, C. K.; Zemcov, M.

Abstract

We present a method for selecting z > 4 dusty, star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) using Herschel/Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver 250/350/500 μm flux densities to search for red sources. We apply this method to 21 deg^2 of data from the HerMES survey to produce a catalog of 38 high-z candidates. Follow-up of the first five of these sources confirms that this method is efficient at selecting high-z DSFGs, with 4/5 at z = 4.3-6.3 (and the remaining source at z = 3.4), and that they are some of the most luminous dusty sources known. Comparison with previous DSFG samples, mostly selected at longer wavelengths (e.g., 850 μm) and in single-band surveys, shows that our method is much more efficient at selecting high-z DSFGs, in the sense that a much larger fraction are at z > 3. Correcting for the selection completeness and purity, we find that the number of bright (S_(500μm) ≥ 30 mJy), red Herschel sources is 3.3 ± 0.8 deg^(–2). This is much higher than the number predicted by current models, suggesting that the DSFG population extends to higher redshifts than previously believed. If the shape of the luminosity function for high-z DSFGs is similar to that at z ~ 2, rest-frame UV based studies may be missing a significant component of the star formation density at z = 4-6, even after correction for extinction.

Additional Information

© 2014 American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 July 12; accepted 2013 October 25; published 2013 December 13. Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA. This material is based upon work supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under grant No. 12- ADAP12-0139 issued through the ADAP program. Part of this work was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. SPIRE has been developed by a consortium of institutes led by Cardiff Univ. (UK) and including Univ. Lethbridge (Canada); NAOC (China); CEA, LAM (France); IFSI, Univ. Padua (Italy); IAC (Spain); Stockholm Observatory (Sweden); Imperial College London, RAL, UCL-MSSL, UKATC, Univ. Sussex (UK); Caltech, JPL, NHSC, Univ. Colorado (USA). This development has been supported by national funding agencies: CSA (Canada); NAOC (China); CEA, CNES, CNRS (France); ASI (Italy); MCINN (Spain); SNSB (Sweden); STFC (UK); and NASA (USA). The SPIRE data presented in paper this have been released through the Herschel Database in Marseille, HeDAM (http://hedam.oamp.fr/HerMES). Some of this material is based upon work at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, which was operated by the California Institute of Technology under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (AST- 0838261). The Submillimeter Array is a joint project between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics and is funded by the Smithsonian Institution and the Academia Sinica. Based in part on observations carried out with the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany) and IGN (Spain). Support for CARMA construction was derived from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation, the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the Associates of the California Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago, the states of California, Illinois and Maryland, and the National Science Foundation. Ongoing CARMA development and operations are supported by the National Science Foundation under a cooperative agreement and the CARMA partner universities. Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. Based in part on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), installed in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, in the island of La Palma. This research made use of Astropy (http://www.astropy.org), a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration 2013). This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System Bibliographic Services. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Facilities: Herschel (SPIRE), CSO (Bolocam, Z-Spec), CARMA, SMA, IRAM:Interferometer, Keck:I (LRIS), GTC (OSIRIS), MERLIN.

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