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Published November 2010 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

The BLAST 250 μm-selected galaxy population in GOODS-South

Abstract

We identify and investigate the nature of the 20 brightest 250 μm sources detected by the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimetre Telescope (BLAST) within the central 150 arcmin² of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS)-South field. Aided by the available deep VLA 1.4 GHz radio imaging, reaching S_(1.4)≃40 μJy (4σ), we have identified radio counterparts for 17/20 of the 250 μm sources. The resulting enhanced positional accuracy of ≃1 arcsec has then allowed us to exploit the deep optical (Hubble Space Telescope), near-infrared (VLT) and mid-infrared (Spitzer) imaging of GOODS-South to establish secure galaxy counterparts for the 17 radio-identified sources, and plausible galaxy candidates for the three radio-unidentified sources. Confusion is a serious issue for this deep BLAST 250 μm survey, due to the large size of the beam. Nevertheless, we argue that our chosen counterparts are significant, and often dominant contributors to the measured BLAST flux densities. For all of these 20 galaxies we have been able to determine spectroscopic (eight) or photometric (12) redshifts. The result is the first near-complete redshift distribution for a deep 250 μm-selected galaxy sample. This reveals that 250 μm surveys reaching detection limits of ≃40 mJy have a median redshift z≃ 1, and contain not only low-redshift spirals/LIRGs, but also the extreme z≃2 dust-enshrouded starburst galaxies previously discovered at sub-millimetre wavelengths. Inspection of the LABOCA 870 μm imaging of GOODS-South yields detections of ≃1/3 of the proposed BLAST sources (all at z > 1.5), and reveals 250/870 μm flux-density ratios consistent with a standard 40 K modified blackbody fit with a dust emissivity index β= 1.5. Based on their Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) colours, we find that virtually all of the BLAST galaxy identifications appear better described as analogues of the M82 starburst galaxy, or Sc star-forming discs rather than highly obscured ULIRGs. This is perhaps as expected at low redshift, where the 250 μm BLAST selection function is biased towards spectral energy distributions which peak longward of λ_(rest)= 100 μm. However, it also appears largely true at z≃2.

Additional Information

© 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS. Accepted 2010 June 30. Received 2010 June 2; in original form 2009 October 23. Published: 28 October 2010. JSD acknowledges the support of the Royal Society through a Wolfson Research Merit Award, and the support of the European Research Council through the award of an Advanced Grant. We acknowledge the support of NASA through grant numbers NAG5-12785, NAG5-13301 and NNGO-6GI11G, the NSF Office of Polar Programs, the Canadian Space Agency, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, and the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). This work is 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. APEX is operated by the Max-Planck-Institut fur Radioastronomie, the European Southern Observatory and the Onsala Space Observatory. This work is based in part on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained from the Data Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. MC acknowledges the award of a STFC Advanced Fellowship. IRS acknowledges support from STFC. JLW acknowledges the support of an STFC Studentship.

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Published - mnras0408-2022.pdf

Submitted - 0910.3642.pdf

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Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 19, 2023