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Published November 2020 | Accepted Version + Published
Journal Article Open

The ALPINE-ALMA [C II] survey. The nature, luminosity function, and star formation history of dusty galaxies up to z ≃ 6

Abstract

Aims. We present the detailed characterisation of a sample of 56 sources serendipitously detected in ALMA band 7 as part of the ALMA Large Program to INvestigate CII at Early Times (ALPINE). These sources, detected in COSMOS and ECDFS, have been used to derive the total infrared luminosity function (LF) and to estimate the cosmic star formation rate density (SFRD) up to z ≃ 6. Methods. We looked for counterparts of the ALMA sources in all the available multi-wavelength (from HST to VLA) and photometric redshift catalogues. We also made use of deeper UltraVISTA and Spitzer source lists and maps to identify optically dark sources with no matches in the public catalogues. We used the sources with estimated redshifts to derive the 250 μm rest-frame and total infrared (8–1000 μm) LFs from z ≃ 0.5 to 6. Results. Our ALMA blind survey (860 μm flux density range: ∼0.3–12.5 mJy) allows us to further push the study of the nature and evolution of dusty galaxies at high-z, identifying luminous and massive sources to redshifts and faint luminosities never probed before by any far-infrared surveys. The ALPINE data are the first ones to sample the faint end of the infrared LF, showing little evolution from z ≃ 2.5 to z ≃ 6, and a "flat" slope up to the highest redshifts (i.e. 4.5 <  z <  6). The SFRD obtained by integrating the luminosity function remains almost constant between z ≃ 2 and z ≃ 6, and significantly higher than the optical or ultra-violet derivations, showing a significant contribution of dusty galaxies and obscured star formation at high-z. About 14% of all the ALPINE serendipitous continuum sources are found to be optically and near-infrared (near-IR) dark (to a depth K_s ∼ 24.9 mag). Six show a counterpart only in the mid-IR and no HST or near-IR identification, while two are detected as [C II] emitters at z ≃ 5. The six HST+near-IR dark galaxies with mid-IR counterparts are found to contribute about 17% of the total SFRD at z ≃ 5 and to dominate the high-mass end of the stellar mass function at z > 3.

Additional Information

© 2020 ESO. Article published by EDP Sciences. Received 25 May 2020; Accepted 14 September 2020; Published online 27 October 2020. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Olivier Le Fèvre, PI of the ALPINE survey. We are grateful to the anonymous referee, whose constructive comments helped us to improve the manuscript. CG acknowledges financial support from the Italian Space Agency under the ASI-INAF contract n. 2018-31-HH.0. CG, FP, MT, AC, GR acknowledge the support from grant PRIN MIUR 2017−20173ML3WW_001. GL acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (project CONCERTO, grant agreement No 788212) and from the Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University-A*Midex, a French "Investissements d'Avenir" programme. SF acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant funding scheme (project ConTExt, grant No. 648179). The Cosmic Dawn Center is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation under grant No. 140. D.R. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation under grant numbers AST-1614213 and AST-1910107. D.R. also acknowledges support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through a Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers. This work is based on observations taken by the 3D-HST Treasury Program (GO 12177 and 12328) with the NASA/ESA HST, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5−26555. Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under ESO programme ID 179.A-2005 and on data products produced by CALET and the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit on behalf of the UltraVISTA consortium.

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Accepted Version - 2006.04974.pdf

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Created:
August 20, 2023
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