Manuel Aravena (NRAO)

Gas and dust in massive disk galaxies and submillimeter galaxies at high-redshift - Manuel Aravena Colloquium

ATNF Marsfield Lecture Theatre

Abstract

In the course of our MAMBO 1.2 mm survey of the COSMOS field we have
found a sample of 25 bright submillimeter galaxies. Most of these
sources appear to fit well within the scenario of IR hyper-luminous,
interacting galaxies at typical redshift of ~ 2, however some of them
are rare objects in the transition between a gas-rich starburst to a
QSO phase. Others appear to form a significant population of
previously unaccounted very high-redshift (z>3) massive galaxies,
while some seem to be embedded in substantial overdensities of massive
disk galaxies at z~1.5-2.0. In this talk, I will present observations
obtained with various (sub)mm telescopes and interferometers that
point to this very varied nature of some of the most massive systems
in the early Universe. Finally I will show our new detections of large
amounts of cold molecular gas in massive disk galaxies at z=1.5 with
the Very Large Array (VLA), which indicate low star-formation
efficiencies, similar to local spiral galaxies. This population of
gas-rich galaxies is 10x more numerous than SMGs, representing ideal
targets for future (on-going) surveys with ALMA and EVLA.