Observations by the Large Area Telescope detector on-board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope are used to examine the 0.1 < E_gamma < 300 GeV gamma-ray emission characteristics of flat spectrum radio quasars. Specifically, the gamma-ray emission from 3C 454.3 and 3C 279 are analysed in detail, in order to put constraints on the location of the emission region. The variability in the spectral shape is explored, whether evidence of a spectral cutoff can be found and whether or not an energy-dependence of the emitting electron cooling exists. The significance of VHE emission is also quantified.
In May - July 2014, 3C 454.3 exhibited strong flaring behaviour. Observations with the Fermi-LAT captured the gamma-ray flux increasing fivefold during this period, with two distinct peaks in emission. The peak daily binned flux climbed to F = 1.3 ± 0.1 x 10^-5 ph cm^-2 s^-1 on MJD 56823. Gamma-ray intrinsic flux doubling timescales as small as tau_int = 0.68 ± 0.01 h at a significance of >5 sigma are found, providing evidence of a compact emission region. Significant E_gamma,emitted > 35 GeV and E_gamma,emitted > 50 GeV emission are also observed. The location of the emission region can be constrained to r > 1.3 x R_BLR^out, a location outside the broad-line region. The spectral variation of 3C 454.3 also suggests that these flares may be originating further downstream of the supermassive black hole than the emission before and after the flares.
3C 279 flared spectacularly in June 2015, becoming brighter than ever previously recorded by Fermi. The peak daily binned flux reached F = (2.5 ± 0.1) x 10^-5 ph cm^-2 s^-1 on MJD 56823. Interestingly, the smallest intrinsic flux doubling timescale is tau_int = 1.38 ± 0.16 h, and no sub-hour flux doubling timescales are found. Significant E_gamma,emitted > 35 GeV and E_gamma,emitted > 50 GeV emission are observed during the flare, alongside a significant spectral hardening. Using photon-photon opacity constraints, the location of the emission region must lie at least r > 2.5 x R_BLR from the SMBH, the mid-point of the broad-line region. As with 3C 454.3, the spectral variation across the period of interest hints that a multi-zonal model may be applicable to the gamma-ray emission.
We use ALMA and JVLA observations of the galaxy cluster Cl J1449+0856 at z=1.99, in order to study how dust-obscured star-formation, ISM content and AGN activity are linked to environment and galaxy interactions during the crucial phase of high-z cluster assembly. We present detections of multiple transitions of $^{12}$CO, as well as dust continuum emission detections from 11 galaxies in the core of Cl J1449+0856. We measure the gas excitation properties, star-formation rates, gas consumption timescales and gas-to-stellar mass ratios for the galaxies. We find evidence for a large fraction of galaxies with highly-excited molecular gas, contributing $>$50% to the total SFR in the cluster core. We compare these results with expectations for field galaxies, and conclude that environmental influences have strongly enhanced the fraction of excited galaxies in this cluster. We find a dearth of molecular gas in the galaxies' gas reservoirs, implying a high star-formation efficiency (SFE) in the cluster core, and find short gas depletion timescales $\tau$<0.1-0.4 Gyrs for all galaxies. Interestingly, we do not see evidence for increased specific star-formation rates (sSFRs) in the cluster galaxies, despite their high SFEs and gas excitations. We find evidence for a large number of mergers in the cluster core, contributing a large fraction of the core's total star-formation compared with expectations in the field. We conclude that the environmental impact on the galaxy excitations is linked to the high rate of galaxy mergers, interactions and active galactic nuclei in the cluster core.
We present CEERS JWST/NIRCam imaging of a massive galaxy group at z = 1.85, to explore the early JWST view on massive group formation in the distant Universe. The group contains ≳16 members (including six spectroscopic confirmations) down to log 10 ( M ⋆ / M ⊙ ) = 8.5, including the brightest group galaxy (BGG) in the process of actively assembling at this redshift. The BGG is comprised of multiple merging components extending ∼3.6″ (30 kpc) across the sky. The BGG contributes 69% of the group’s total galactic stellar mass, with one of the merging components containing 76% of the total mass of the BGG and a star formation rate > 1810 M ⊙ yr −1 . Most importantly, we detected intra-halo light (IHL) in several HST and JWST/NIRCam bands, allowing us to construct a state-of-the-art rest-frame UV-NIR spectral energy distribution of the IHL for the first time at this high redshift. This allows stellar population characterisation of both the IHL and member galaxies, as well as the morphology distribution of group galaxies versus their star formation activity when coupled with Herschel data. We created a stacked image of the IHL, giving us a sensitivity to extended emission of 28.5 mag arcsec −2 at rest-frame 1 μm. We find that the IHL is extremely dust poor ( A v ∼ 0), containing an evolved stellar population of log 10 ( t 50 /yr) = 8.8, corresponding to a formation epoch for 50% of the stellar material 0.63 Gyr before z = 1.85. There is no evidence of ongoing star formation in the IHL. The IHL in this group at z = 1.85 contributes ∼10% of the total stellar mass, comparable with what is observed in local clusters. This suggests that the evolution of the IHL fraction is more self-similar with redshift than predicted by some models, challenging our understanding of IHL formation during the assembly of high-redshift clusters. JWST is unveiling a new side of group formation at this redshift, which will evolve into Virgo-like structures in the local Universe.
We have discovered a 300kpc-wide giant Lya nebula centered on the massive galaxy group RO-1001 at z=2.91 in the COSMOS field. Keck Cosmic Web Imager observations reveal three cold gas filaments converging into the center of the potential well of its ~4x10^13Msun dark matter halo, hosting 1200Msun/yr of star formation as probed by ALMA and NOEMA observations. The nebula morphological and kinematics properties and the prevalence of blueshifted components in the Lya spectra are consistent with a scenario of gas accretion. The upper limits on AGN activity and overall energetics favor gravity as the primary Lya powering source and infall as the main source of gas flows to the system. Although interpretational difficulties remain, with outflows and likely also photoionization with ensuing recombination still playing a role, this finding provides arguably an ideal environment to quantitatively test models of cold gas accretion and galaxy feeding inside an actively star-forming massive halo at high redshift.
The standard AGN-galaxy co-evolutionary scenario predicts a phase of deeply buried supermassive black hole growth coexisting with a starburst (SB) before feedback phenomena deplete the cold molecular gas reservoir of the galaxy and an optically luminous QSO is revealed ('SB-QSO evolutionary sequence'). The aim of this work is to measure the cold gas reservoir of three highly obscured QSOs to test if their gas fraction is similar to that of sub-millimeter galaxies (SMGs), as expected by some models, and place these measurements in the context of the SB-QSO framework. We target CO(1-0) transition in BzK4892, a Compton Thick (CT) QSO at z=2.6, CO(1-0) in BzK8608 and CO(2-1) in CDF153, two highly obscured QSOs at z=2.5 and z=1.5, respectively. For all these targets, we place 3$\sigma$ upper limits on the CO, with $L'_{CO} < (1.5\div 2.8)\times 10^{10}$ K km/s pc$^2$. We also compare the molecular gas conditions of our targets with those of other systems at z>1, considering normal star forming galaxies and SMGs, unobscured and obscured AGN from the literature. For the AGN samples, we provide an updated and (almost) complete collection of targets with CO follow-up. BzK4892 displays a high star formation efficiency (SFE$=L_{IR}/L'_{CO}>410$ L$_{\odot}$/(K km s$^{-1}$ pc$^2$)) and a gas fraction $f_{gas}<0.1$. Less stringent constraints are derived for the other two targets ($f_{gas}<0.5$ and SFE$>10$). From the comparison with literature data, we found that a) obscured AGN at z>1 are associated with higher SFE and lower $f_{gas}$ with respect to star forming galaxies; b) mildly and highly obscured active galaxies have comparable gas fractions; c) the SFE of CT and obscured AGN are similar to those of unobscured AGN. Within the SB-QSO framework, these findings could be consistent with a scenario where feedback can impact the host galaxy already from the early phases of the SB-QSO sequence.
We investigate the properties of a sample of 35 galaxies, detected with ALMA at 1.1 mm in the GOODS-ALMA field (area of 69 arcmin$^2$, resolution = 0.60", RMS $\simeq$ 0.18 mJy beam$^{-1}$). Using the UV-to-radio deep multiwavelength coverage of the GOODS-South field, we fit the spectral energy distributions of these galaxies to derive their key physical properties. The galaxies detected by ALMA are among the most massive at $z$ = 2-4 (M$_{\star,med}$ = 8.5$ \times$ 10$^{10}$ M$_\odot$) and are either starburst or located in the upper part of the galaxy star-forming main sequence. A significant portion of our galaxy population ($\sim$ 40%), located at $z\sim$ 2.5-3, exhibits abnormally low gas fractions. The sizes of these galaxies, measured with ALMA, are compatible with the trend between $H$-band size and stellar mass observed for $z\sim2$ elliptical galaxies suggesting that they are building compact bulges. We show that there is a strong link between star formation surface density (at 1.1 mm) and gas depletion time: the more compact a galaxy's star-forming region is, the shorter its lifetime will be (without gas replenishment). The identified compact sources associated with relatively short depletion timescales ($\sim$100 Myr), are the ideal candidates to be the progenitors of compact elliptical galaxies at $z$ $\sim$ 2.
Abstract We show that the most distant X-ray-detected cluster known to date, Cl J1001 at , hosts a strong overdensity of radio sources. Six of them are individually detected (within ) in deep resolution VLA 3 GHz imaging, with . Of the six, an active galactic nucleus (AGN) likely affects the radio emission in two galaxies, while star formation is the dominant source powering the remaining four. We searched for cluster candidates over the full COSMOS 2 deg 2 field using radio-detected 3 GHz sources and looking for peaks in density maps. Cl J1001 is the strongest overdensity by far with , with a simple preselection. A cruder photometric rejection of radio foregrounds leaves Cl J1001 as the second strongest overdensity, while even using all radio sources Cl J1001 remains among the four strongest projected overdensities. We conclude that there are great prospects for future deep and wide-area radio surveys to discover large samples of the first generation of forming galaxy clusters. In these remarkable structures, widespread star formation and AGN activity of massive galaxy cluster members, residing within the inner cluster core, will ultimately lead to radio continuum as one of the most effective means for their identification, with detection rates expected in the ballpark of 0.1–1 per square degree at . Samples of hundreds such high-redshift clusters could potentially constrain cosmological parameters and test cluster and galaxy formation models.
Abstract We present a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of the morphological and structural properties of a large sample of galaxies at z = 3–9 using early James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) CEERS NIRCam observations. Our sample consists of 850 galaxies at z > 3 detected in both Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/WFC3 and CEERS JWST/NIRCam images, enabling a comparison of HST and JWST morphologies. We conduct a set of visual classifications, with each galaxy in the sample classified three times. We also measure quantitative morphologies across all NIRCam filters. We find that galaxies at z > 3 have a wide diversity of morphologies. Galaxies with disks make up 60% of galaxies at z = 3, and this fraction drops to ∼30% at z = 6–9, while galaxies with spheroids make up ∼30%–40% across the redshift range, and pure spheroids with no evidence for disks or irregular features make up ∼20%. The fraction of galaxies with irregular features is roughly constant at all redshifts (∼40%–50%), while those that are purely irregular increases from ∼12% to ∼20% at z > 4.5. We note that these are apparent fractions, as many observational effects impact the visibility of morphological features at high redshift. On average, Spheroid-only galaxies have a higher Sérsic index, smaller size, and higher axis ratio than disk or irregular galaxies. Across all redshifts, smaller spheroid and disk galaxies tend to be rounder. Overall, these trends suggest that galaxies with established disks and spheroids exist across the full redshift range of this study, and further work with large samples at higher redshift is needed to quantify when these features first formed.
The new capabilities that JWST offers in the near- and mid-infrared (IR) are used to investigate in unprecedented detail the nature of optical/near-IR faint, mid-IR bright sources, HST-dark galaxies among them. We gather JWST data from the CEERS survey in the EGS, jointly with HST data, and analyze spatially resolved optical-to-mid-IR spectral energy distributions (SEDs) to estimate both photometric redshifts in 2 dimensions and stellar populations properties in a pixel-by-pixel basis. We select 138 galaxies with F150W-F356W>1.5 mag, F356W<27.5 mag. The nature of these sources is threefold: (1) 71% are dusty star-forming galaxies at 2100 Gyr^-1); (2) 18% are quiescent/dormant (i.e., subject to reignition and rejuvenation) galaxies at 3
We analyse measurements of the evolving stellar mass (M0) at which the bending of the star-forming main sequence (MS) occurs over 01.4 (for which we propose a revision in agreement with latest simulations). We hence argue that the MS bending is primarily due to the lessening of cold-accretion causing a reduction in available cold gas in galaxies and supports predictions of gas feeding theory. In particular, the rapidly rising M0 with redshift at z>1 is confirming evidence for the cold-streams scenario. In this picture, a progressive fueling reduction rather than its sudden suppression in halos more massive than Mshock/Mstream produces a nearly constant star-formation rate in galaxies with stellar masses larger than M0, and not their quenching, for which other physical processes are thus required. Compared to the knee M* in the stellar mass function of galaxies, M0 is significantly lower at z<1.5, and higher at z>2, suggesting that the imprint of gas deprivation on the distribution of galaxy masses happened at early times (z>1.5-2). The typical mass at which galaxies inside the MS become bulge-dominated evolves differently from M0, consistent with the idea that bulge-formation is a distinct process from the phasing-out of cold-accretion.
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