학술논문
Spitzer observations of MAMBO galaxies: weeding out active nuclei in starbursting proto-ellipticals
Document Type
Working Paper
Author
Ivison, R. J.; Greve, T. R.; Serjeant, S.; Bertoldi, F.; Egami, E.; Mortier, A. M. J.; Alonso-Herrero, A.; Barmby, P.; Bei, L.; Dole, H.; Engelbracht, C. W.; Fazio, G. G.; Frayer, D. T.; Gordon, K. D.; Hines, D. C.; Huang, J. -S.; Floch, E. Le; Misselt, K. A.; Miyazaki, S.; Morrison, J. E.; Papovich, C.; Perez-Gonzalez, P. G.; Rieke, M. J.; Rieke, G. H.; Rigby, J.; Rigopoulou, D.; Smail, I.; Wilson, G.; Willner, S. P.
Source
Astrophys.J.Suppl.154:124-129,2004
Subject
Language
Abstract
We present Spitzer observations in five wavebands between 3.6 and 24um of an unbiased sample of 9 luminous, dusty galaxies selected at 1200um by the MAMBO camera on the IRAM 30-m telescope, a population akin to the well-known submm or `SCUBA' galaxies (hereafter SMGs). Owing to the coarse resolution of submm/mm instrumentation, SMGs have traditionally been difficult to identify at other wavelengths. We compare our multi-wavelength catalogs to show that the overlap between 24 and 1200um must be close to complete at these flux levels. We find that all (4/4) of the most secure >=4sigma SMGs have robust >=4sigma counterparts at 1.4GHz, while the fraction drops to 7/9 using all >=3sigma SMGs. We show that combining mid-IR and marginal (>=3sigma) radio detections provides plausible identifications in the remaining cases, enabling us to identify the complete sample. Accretion onto an obscured central engine is betrayed by the shape of the mid-IR continuum emission for several sources, confirming Spitzer's potential to weed out active galaxies. We demonstrate the power of a S(24um)/S(8um) vs S(8um)/S(4.5um) color-color plot as a diagnostic for this purpose. However, we conclude that the majority (~75%) of SMGs have rest-frame mid-/far-IR SEDs commensurate with obscured starbursts. Sensitive 24-um observations are clearly a useful route to identify and characterize reliable counterparts to high-redshift far-IR-bright galaxies, complementing what is possible via deep radio imaging.
Comment: Accepted, ApJS Spitzer Special Issue. Full resolution version at http://www.roe.ac.uk/~rji/ivison_letter.ps.gz
Comment: Accepted, ApJS Spitzer Special Issue. Full resolution version at http://www.roe.ac.uk/~rji/ivison_letter.ps.gz