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High-resolution SMA imaging of bright submillimetre sources from the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey

Hill, Ryley; Chapman, Scott C; Scott, Douglas; Petitpas, Glen; Smail, Ian; Chapin, Edward L; Gurwell, Mark A; Perry, Ryan; Blain, Andrew W; Bremer, Malcolm N; Chen, Chian-Chou; Dunlop, James S; Farrah, Duncan; Fazio, Giovanni G; Geach, James E; Howson, Paul; Ivison, RJ; Lacaille, Kevin; Michałowski, Michał J; Simpson, James M; Swinbank, AM; van der Werf, Paul P; Wilner, David J

High-resolution SMA imaging of bright submillimetre sources from the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey Thumbnail


Authors

Ryley Hill

Scott C Chapman

Douglas Scott

Glen Petitpas

Profile image of Ian Smail

Ian Smail ian.smail@durham.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor

Edward L Chapin

Mark A Gurwell

Ryan Perry

Andrew W Blain

Malcolm N Bremer

Chian-Chou Chen

James S Dunlop

Duncan Farrah

Giovanni G Fazio

James E Geach

Paul Howson

RJ Ivison

Kevin Lacaille

Michał J Michałowski

James M Simpson

AM Swinbank

Paul P van der Werf

David J Wilner



Abstract

We have used the Submillimeter Array (SMA) at 860 µm to observe the brightest sources in the Submillimeter Common User Bolometer Array-2 (SCUBA-2) Cosmology Legacy Survey (S2CLS). The goal of this survey is to exploit the large field of the S2CLS along with the resolution and sensitivity of the SMA to construct a large sample of these rare sources and to study their statistical properties. We have targeted 70 of the brightest single-dish SCUBA-2 850 µm sources down to S850 ≈ 8 mJy, achieving an average synthesized beam of 2.4 arcsec and an average rms of σ860 = 1.5 mJy beam−1 in our primary beam-corrected maps. We searched our SMA maps for 4σ peaks, corresponding to S860 6 mJy sources, and detected 62, galaxies, including three pairs. We include in our study 35 archival observations, bringing our sample size to 105 bright single-dish submillimetre sources with interferometric followup. We compute the cumulative and differential number counts, finding them to overlap with previous single-dish survey number counts within the uncertainties, although our cumulative number count is systematically lower than the parent S2CLS cumulative number count by 14 ± 6 per cent between 11 and 15 mJy. We estimate the probability that a 10 mJy singledish submillimetre source resolves into two or more galaxies with similar flux densities to be less than 15 per cent. Assuming the remaining 85 per cent of the targets are ultraluminous starburst galaxies between z = 2 and 3, we find a likely volume density of 400 M yr−1 sources to be ∼ 3+0.7 −0.6 × 10−7 Mpc−3. We show that the descendants of these galaxies could be 4 × 1011 M local quiescent galaxies, and that about 10 per cent of their total stellar mass would have formed during these short bursts of star formation.

Citation

Hill, R., Chapman, S. C., Scott, D., Petitpas, G., Smail, I., Chapin, E. L., …Wilner, D. J. (2018). High-resolution SMA imaging of bright submillimetre sources from the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 477(2), 2042-2067. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty746

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 10, 2018
Online Publication Date Mar 21, 2018
Publication Date Mar 21, 2018
Deposit Date May 31, 2018
Publicly Available Date May 31, 2018
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN 0035-8711
Electronic ISSN 1365-2966
Publisher Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 477
Issue 2
Pages 2042-2067
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty746
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1329761

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Copyright Statement
© 2018 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society
This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/about_us/legal/notices)






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