1. Department of Astronomy, University of Tokyo, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
2. National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan
3. Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0015, Japan
4. Nobeyama Radio Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Minamimaki, Minamisaku, Nagano 384-1305, Japan
5. Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA
6. Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Optica y Electrónica, Aptdo. Postal 51 y 216, 72000 Puebla, Puebla, Mexico

Correspondence to: Yoichi Tamura^1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Y.T. (Email: yoichi.tamura@nao.ac.jp).

Abstract

Lyman- emitters are thought to be young, low-mass galaxies with ages of 10⁸ yr (refs 1, 2). An overdensity of them in one region of the sky (the SSA 22 field) traces out a filamentary structure in the early Universe at a redshift of z  3.1 (equivalent to 15 per cent of the age of the Universe) and is believed to mark a forming protocluster^{3, 4}. Galaxies that are bright at (sub)millimetre wavelengths are undergoing violent episodes of star formation^{5, 6, 7, 8}, and there is evidence that they are preferentially associated with high-redshift radio galaxies⁹, so the question of whether they are also associated with the most significant large-scale structure growing at high redshift (as outlined by Lyman- emitters) naturally arises. Here we report an imaging survey of 1,100-m emission in the SSA 22 region. We find an enhancement of submillimetre galaxies near the core of the protocluster, and a large-scale correlation between the submillimetre galaxies and the low-mass Lyman- emitters, suggesting synchronous formation of the two very different types of star-forming galaxy within the same structure at high redshift. These results are in general agreement with our understanding of the formation of cosmic structure.

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