A Subarcsecond Near-infrared View of Massive Galaxies at z > 1 with Gemini Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics

Creators: Lacy, M.; Nyland, K; Mao, M.; Jagannathan, P.; Pforr, J.; Ridgway, S. E.; Afonso, J.; Farrah, D.; Guarnieri, P.; Gonzales-Solares, E.; Jarvis, M. J.; Maraston, C.; Nielsen, D. M.; Petric, A. O.; Sajina, A.; Surace, J. A.; Vaccari, M.

Abstract

We present images taken using the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager (GSAOI) with the Gemini Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics System (GeMS) in three 2 arcmin^2 fields in the Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey. These GeMS/GSAOI observations are among the first ≈0 1 resolution data in the near-infrared spanning extragalactic fields exceeding 1 5 in size. We use these data to estimate galaxy sizes, obtaining results similar to those from studies with the Hubble Space Telescope, though we find a higher fraction of compact star-forming galaxies at z > 2. To disentangle the star-forming galaxies from active galactic nuclei (AGNs), we use multiwavelength data from surveys in the optical and infrared, including far-infrared data from Herschel, as well as new radio continuum data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array and Very Large Array. We identify ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) at z ~ 1–3, which consist of a combination of pure starburst galaxies and AGN/starburst composites. The ULIRGs show signs of recent merger activity, such as highly disturbed morphologies and include a rare candidate triple-AGN. We find that AGNs tend to reside in hosts with smaller scale sizes than purely star-forming galaxies of similar infrared luminosity. Our observations demonstrate the potential for MCAO to complement the deeper galaxy surveys to be made with the James Webb Space Telescope.

Additional Information

© 2018 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2017 September 22; revised 2018 June 22; accepted 2018 July 3; published 2018 August 24. We thank J.C. Mauduit for assistance with the CTIO observations in this paper. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This work made extensive use of topcat (Taylor 2005) for catalog matching and analysis, and the Virtual Observatory SAMP protocol for communication between applications. This research made use of Montage. It is funded by the National Science Foundation under grant No. ACI-1440620, and was previously funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Science Technology Office, Computation Technologies Project, under Cooperative Agreement Number NCC5-626 between NASA and the California Institute of Technology. This research made use of APLpy, an open-source plotting package for Python (Robitaille & Bressert 2012). J.A. gratefully acknowledges support from the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT, Portugal) through the research grant UID/FIS/04434/2013.

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