A massive core for a cluster of galaxies at a redshift of 4.3
- Creators
- Miller, T. B.
- Bradford, C. M.
Abstract
Massive galaxy clusters have been found that date to times as early as three billion years after the Big Bang, containing stars that formed at even earlier epochs. The high-redshift progenitors of these galaxy clusters—termed 'protoclusters'—can be identified in cosmological simulations that have the highest overdensities (greater-than-average densities) of dark matter. Protoclusters are expected to contain extremely massive galaxies that can be observed as luminous starbursts. However, recent detections of possible protoclusters hosting such starbursts do not support the kind of rapid cluster-core formation expected from simulations: the structures observed contain only a handful of starbursting galaxies spread throughout a broad region, with poor evidence for eventual collapse into a protocluster. Here we report observations of carbon monoxide and ionized carbon emission from the source SPT2349-56. We find that this source consists of at least 14 gas-rich galaxies, all lying at redshifts of 4.31. We demonstrate that each of these galaxies is forming stars between 50 and 1,000 times more quickly than our own Milky Way, and that all are located within a projected region that is only around 130 kiloparsecs in diameter. This galaxy surface density is more than ten times the average blank-field value (integrated over all redshifts), and more than 1,000 times the average field volume density. The velocity dispersion (approximately 410 kilometres per second) of these galaxies and the enormous gas and star-formation densities suggest that this system represents the core of a cluster of galaxies that was already at an advanced stage of formation when the Universe was only 1.4 billion years old. A comparison with other known protoclusters at high redshifts shows that SPT2349-56 could be building one of the most massive structures in the Universe today.
Additional Information
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. Received: 19 September 2017; Accepted: 24 January 2018; Published online: 25 April 2018. Data availability: Data can be made available upon reasonable request to T.B.M. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data (http://www.almaobservatory.org/en/home/): ADS/JAO.ALMA#2016.1.00236.T and ADS/JAO.ALMA#2015.1.01543.T. ALMA is a partnership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO, representing its member states), the National Science Foundation (NSF, USA) and the National Institute of Natural Sciences (NINS, Japan), together with the National Research Council (NRC, Canada) and the National Security Council (NSC) and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA, Taiwan), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, Associated Universities Inc. (AUI)/National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). This work is also based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. The SPT is supported by the NSF through grant PLR-1248097, with partial support through grant PHY-1125897, the Kavli Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant GBMF 947. This publication is based on data acquired with the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) under programmes E-299.A-5045A-2017 and ID M-091.F-0031-2013. APEX is a collaboration between the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, the ESO, and the Onsala Space Observatory. Supporting observations were obtained at the Gemini Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the NSF (USA), the NRC (Canada), Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT, Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologa e Innovacion Productiva (Argentina), and Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao (Brazil). The Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) is part of the Australia Telescope National Facility which is funded by the Australian Government for operation as a National Facility managed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). D.P.M., J.S.S., J.D.V., K.C.L. and J.S. acknowledge support from the US NSF under grant AST-1312950. S.C.C., T.B.M. and A.B. acknowledge support from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). S.C.C. and T.B.M. acknowledge the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Killam trust. M.A. acknowledges partial support from the Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científica y Tecnológico (FONDECYT, Chile) through grant 114009. The Flatiron Institute is supported by the Simons Foundation. J.D.V. acknowledges support from an A.P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship. Reviewer information: Nature thanks P. Capak and C. Papovich for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Author Contributions: T.B.M. led the data analysis and assembled the paper. S.C.C. designed the study, proposed the ALMA observations, re-imaged the data, and analysed the data products. C.C.H. developed the theoretical model and advised on the literature comparison. M.A. led the ATCA follow-up and the blind emission-line studies. A.W. procured and analysed the deep LABOCA imaging. M.Br. provided the cluster mass and evolution context and discussion. J.S.S. reimaged the calibrated data. K.A.P. performed the spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting. T.B.M, S.C.C., M.A., K.A.P. and A.W. made the figures. S.C.C., T.B.M., M.A., C.C.H., J.D.V. and A.W. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and provided comments on the paper. The authors are ordered alphabetically after A.W. The authors declare no competing interests.Errata
In this Letter, the Acknowledgements section should have included the following sentence: "The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.". This omission has been corrected online.Attached Files
Submitted - 1804.09231.pdf
Supplemental Material - 41586_2018_25_Tab1_ESM.jpg
Supplemental Material - 41586_2018_25_Tab2_ESM.jpg
Supplemental Material - 41586_2018_25_Tab3_ESM.jpg
Supplemental Material - Fig1.jpg
Supplemental Material - Fig2.jpg
Supplemental Material - Fig3.jpg
Supplemental Material - Fig4.jpg
Supplemental Material - Fig5.jpg
Supplemental Material - Fig6.jpg
Supplemental Material - Fig7.jpg
Erratum - s41586-018-0285-x.pdf
Files
Name | Size | Download all |
---|---|---|
md5:5e08da260bf66a83b1e3def0f7eb80a9
|
74.5 kB | Preview Download |
md5:eea0279af8e56b1d8d3e6567cf8e2169
|
79.4 kB | Preview Download |
md5:114438bc7524f8d17ecc205731b58032
|
9.1 MB | Preview Download |
md5:4163ebb963b4c13007f08e7e560916fd
|
46.4 kB | Preview Download |
md5:4eb6bb10124fedc472636ba68be559d1
|
25.8 kB | Preview Download |
md5:189f68f0dcd58b14aea4fc16ccc49ca0
|
80.0 kB | Preview Download |
md5:bd722062e20a956cd0fac7ce26462e3b
|
53.1 kB | Preview Download |
md5:63ee52bb84b0d44194056a8805bd70fb
|
338.9 kB | Preview Download |
md5:ef10367371d07605ce44b8587676a896
|
297.0 kB | Preview Download |
md5:78e4b0746204e61fb19ab506b3ec7ae3
|
75.9 kB | Preview Download |
md5:eb879530b36f4e8a6f9e9a7c70306151
|
181.3 kB | Preview Download |
md5:c11f9a80ee27894eda4c6010f85a82a7
|
91.8 kB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 86127
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20180430-111957676
- PLR-1248097
- NSF
- PHY-1125897
- NSF
- Kavli Foundation
- GBMF 947
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- AST-1312950
- NSF
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Canada Foundation for Innovation
- Killam Trust
- 114009
- Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científica y Tecnológico (FONDECYT)
- Simons Foundation
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Created
-
2018-04-30Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2023-06-01Created from EPrint's last_modified field