Abstract
In the past decade, our understanding of galaxy evolution has been revolutionized by the discovery that luminous, dusty starburst galaxies were 1,000 times more abundant in the early Universe than at present1,2. It has, however, been difficult to measure the complete redshift distribution of these objects, especially at the highest redshifts (z > 4). Here we report a redshift survey at a wavelength of three millimetres, targeting carbon monoxide line emission from the star-forming molecular gas in the direction of extraordinarily bright millimetre-wave-selected sources. High-resolution imaging demonstrates that these sources are strongly gravitationally lensed by foreground galaxies. We detect spectral lines in 23 out of 26 sources and multiple lines in 12 of those 23 sources, from which we obtain robust, unambiguous redshifts. At least 10 of the sources are found to lie at z > 4, indicating that the fraction of dusty starburst galaxies at high redshifts is greater than previously thought. Models of lens geometries in the sample indicate that the background objects are ultra-luminous infrared galaxies, powered by extreme bursts of star formation.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lagache, G., Puget, J.-L. & Dole, H. Dusty infrared galaxies: sources of the cosmic infrared background. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 43, 727–768 (2005)
Chapman, S. C., Blain, A. W., Smail, I. & Ivison, R. J. A redshift survey of the submillimeter galaxy population. Astrophys. J. 622, 772–796 (2005)
Carlstrom, J. E. et al. The 10 meter South Pole Telescope. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacif. 123, 568–581 (2011)
Vieira, J. D. et al. Extragalactic millimeter-wave sources in South Pole Telescope survey data: source counts, catalog, and statistics for an 87 square-degree field. Astrophys. J. 719, 763–783 (2010)
Blain, A. W. & Longair, M. S. Submillimetre cosmology. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 264, 509–521 (1993)
Moshir, M., Kopman, G., Conrow, T. A. O., eds. IRAS Faint Source Survey, Explanatory Supplement Version 2 (Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, 1992)
Bock, D. C.-J., Turtle, A. J. & Green, A. J. A high-resolution radio survey of the Vela supernova remnant. Astron. J. 116, 1886–1896 (1998)
Blain, A. W. Galaxy-galaxy gravitational lensing in the millimetre/submillimetre waveband. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 283, 1340–1348 (1996)
Negrello, M. et al. Astrophysical and cosmological information from large-scale submillimetre surveys of extragalactic sources. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 377, 1557–1568 (2007)
Hezaveh, Y. D. & Holder, G. P. Effects of strong gravitational lensing on millimeter-wave galaxy number counts. Astrophys. J. 734, 52–59 (2011)
Hezaveh, Y. D. et al. ALMA observations of strongly lensed submillimeter galaxies. Astrophys. J. (submitted)
Ivison, R. J. et al. Deep radio imaging of the SCUBA 8-mJy survey fields: submillimetre source identifications and redshift distribution. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 337, 1–25 (2002)
Coppin, K. E. K. et al. A submillimetre galaxy at z = 4.76 in the LABOCA survey of the Extended Chandra Deep Field-South. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 395, 1905–1914 (2009)
Walter, F. et al. The intense starburst HDF 850.1 in a galaxy overdensity at z ≈ 5.2 in the Hubble Deep Field. Nature 486, 233–236 (2012)
Solomon, P. M. & Vanden Bout, P. A. Molecular gas at high redshift. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 43, 677–725 (2005)
Capak, P. et al. Spectroscopic confirmation of an extreme starburst at redshift 4.547. Astrophys. J. 681, L53–L56 (2008)
Daddi, E. et al. Two bright submillimeter galaxies in a z = 4.05 protocluster in GOODS-North, and accurate radio-infrared photometric redshifts. Astrophys. J. 694, 1517–1538 (2009)
Daddi, E. et al. A CO emission line from the optical and near-IR undetected submillimeter galaxy GN10. Astrophys. J. 695, L176–L180 (2009)
Riechers, D. A. et al. A massive molecular gas reservoir in the z = 5.3 submillimeter galaxy AzTEC-3. Astrophys. J. 720, L131–L136 (2010)
Cox, P. et al. Gas and dust in a submillimeter galaxy at z = 4.24 from the Herschel atlas. Astrophys. J. 740, 63–72 (2011)
Combes, F. et al. A bright z = 5.2 lensed submillimeter galaxy in the field of Abell 773. HLSJ091828.6+514223. Astron. Astrophys. 538, L4–L7 (2012)
Greve, T. R. et al. Submillimeter observations of millimeter bright galaxies discovered by the South Pole Telescope. Astrophys. J. 756, 101–113 (2012)
Weiß, A. et al. ALMA redshifts of millimeter selected galaxies from the SPT survey. Astrophys. J. (in the press)
Smolcic, V. et al. Millimeter imaging of submillimeter galaxies in the COSMOS field: redshift distribution. Preprint at http://arXiv.org/abs/1205.6470 (2012)
Baugh, C. M. et al. Can the faint submillimetre galaxies be explained in the Λ cold dark matter model? Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 356, 1191–1200 (2005)
Benson, A. J. GALACTICUS: a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation. N. Astron. 17, 175–197 (2012)
Banerji, M. et al. Luminous starbursts in the redshift desert at z ∼ 1 – 2: star formation rates, masses and evidence for outflows. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 418, 1071–1088 (2011)
Acknowledgements
The SPT is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Kavli Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada) and NSC and ASIAA (Taiwan), in cooperation with Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the NSF operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. Partial support for this work was provided by NASA from the Space Telescope Science Institute. This work is based in part on observations made with Herschel, a European Space Agency Cornerstone Mission with significant participation by NASA. Work at McGill University is supported by NSERC, the CRC programme and CIfAR.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
J.D.V. and D.P.M. wrote the text. S.C.C. took and reduced optical images and spectroscopy. A.W., C.D.B. and D.P.M. analysed the ALMA spectra. D.P.M., J.S.S. and Y.D.H. analysed the ALMA imaging data. J.D.V. reduced and analysed the Herschel data. Y.D.H. constructed the lens models. C.D.F. reduced optical images. All other authors (listed alphabetically) have contributed as part of the South Pole Telescope collaboration, by their involvement with the construction of the instrument, the initial discovery of the sources, multi-wavelength follow-up, and/or contributions to the text.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
This file contains Supplementary Text and Supplementary Figures 1-3. (PDF 2919 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vieira, J., Marrone, D., Chapman, S. et al. Dusty starburst galaxies in the early Universe as revealed by gravitational lensing. Nature 495, 344–347 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12001
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12001
This article is cited by
-
Strong Gravitational Lensing and Microlensing of Supernovae
Space Science Reviews (2024)
-
Deshima 2.0: Rapid Redshift Surveys and Multi-line Spectroscopy of Dusty Galaxies
Journal of Low Temperature Physics (2022)
-
A dynamically cold disk galaxy in the early Universe
Nature (2020)
-
An X-ray detection of star formation in a highly magnified giant arc
Nature Astronomy (2019)
-
A dominant population of optically invisible massive galaxies in the early Universe
Nature (2019)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.