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Published January 2017 | Published
Journal Article Open

The ALMA Frontier Fields Survey. I. 1.1 mm continuum detections in Abell 2744, MACS J0416.1-2403 and MACS J1149.5+2223

Abstract

Context. Dusty star-forming galaxies are among the most prodigious systems at high redshift (z > 1), characterized by high star-formation rates and huge dust reservoirs. The bright end of this population has been well characterized in recent years, but considerable uncertainties remain for fainter dusty star-forming galaxies, which are responsible for the bulk of star formation at high redshift and thus play a key role in galaxy growth and evolution. Aims. In this first paper of our series, we describe our methods for finding high redshift faint dusty galaxies using millimeter observations with ALMA. Methods. We obtained ALMA 1.1 mm mosaic images for three strong-lensing galaxy clusters from the Frontier Fields Survey, which constitute some of the best studied gravitational lenses to date. The ≈2′ × 2′ mosaics overlap with the deep HST WFC3/IR footprints and encompass the high magnification regions of each cluster for maximum intrinsic source sensitivity. The combination of extremely high ALMA sensitivity and the magnification power of these clusters allows us to systematically probe the sub-mJy population of dusty star-forming galaxies over a large surveyed area. Results. We present a description of the reduction and analysis of the ALMA continuum observations for the galaxy clusters Abell 2744 (z = 0.308), MACS J0416.1-2403 (z = 0.396) and MACS J1149.5+2223 (z = 0.543), for which we reach observed rms sensitivities of 55, 59 and 71 μJy beam^(-1) respectively. We detect 12 dusty star-forming galaxies at S/N ≥ 5.0 across the three clusters, all of them presenting coincidence with near-infrared detected counterparts in the HST images. None of the sources fall close to the lensing caustics, thus they are not strongly lensed. The observed 1.1 mm flux densities for the total sample of galaxies range from 0.41 to 2.82 mJy, with observed effective radii spanning ≲ 0.̋05 to 0.̋37 ± 0.̋21 . The lensing-corrected sizes of the detected sources appear to be in the same range as those measured in brighter samples, albeit with possibly larger dispersion.

Additional Information

© ESO, 2016. Received: 27 April 2016. Accepted: 26 September 2016. Published online 21 December 2016. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2013.1.00999.S. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada) and NSC and ASIAA (Taiwan), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. We acknowledge support from CONICYT-Chile grants Basal-CATA PFB-06/2007 (J.G.L., F.E.B., R.C., L.I., N.N.), FONDECYT Regular 1141218 (J.G.L., F.E.B., R.C.), FONDECYT grant 3150238 (CRC), "EMBIGGEN" Anillo ACT1101 (F.E.B., N.N.), and the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS (F.E.B., C.R.C.). A.Z. is supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant #HST-HF2-51334.001-A awarded by STScI, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. A.M.M.A. acknowledges support from FONDECYT grant 3160776. R.D. gratefully acknowledges the support provided by the BASAL Center for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies (CATA), and by FONDECYT grant No. 1130528. This work was partially supported by the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre TRR 33 (M.C.). S.K. is supported by FONDECYT grant No. 3130488 We acknowledge support from European Research Council Advanced Grant FP7/669253 (NL) This work utilizes gravitational lensing models produced by PIs Bradač, Natarajan & Kneib (CATS), Merten & Zitrin, Sharon, and Williams, and the GLAFIC and Diego groups. This lens modeling was partially funded by the HST Frontier Fields program conducted by STScI. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. The lens models were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST).

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