HerMES: The Rest-frame UV Emission and a Lensing Model for the z = 6.34 Luminous Dusty Starburst Galaxy HFLS3

Cooray, A.; Calanog, Jae; Wardlow, Julie L.; Bock, J.; Bridge, C.; Burgarella, D.; Bussmann, R. S.; Casey, C. M.; Clements, D.; Conley, A.; Farrah, D.; Fu, H.; Gavazzi, R.; Ivison, R. J.; La Porte, N.; Lo Faro, B.; Ma, Brian; Magdis, G.; Oliver, S. J.; Osage, W. A.; Pérez-Fournon, I.; Riechers, D.; Rigopoulou, D.; Scott, Douglas; Viero, M.; Watson, D.
Bibliographical reference

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 790, Issue 1, article id. 40, 10 pp. (2014).

Advertised on:
7
2014
Number of authors
26
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
68
Refereed citations
64
Description
We discuss the rest-frame ultraviolet emission from the starbursting galaxy HFLS3 at a redshift of 6.34. The galaxy was discovered in Herschel/SPIRE data due to its red color in the submillimeter wavelengths from 250 to 500 μm. Keck/NIRC2 K s -band adaptive optics imaging data showed two potential near-IR counterparts near HFLS3. Previously, the northern galaxy was taken to be in the foreground at z = 2.1, while the southern galaxy was assumed to be HFLS3's near-IR counterpart. The recently acquired Hubble/WFC3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) imaging data show conclusively that both optically bright galaxies are in the foreground at z < 6. A new lensing model based on the Hubble imaging data and the millimeter-wave continuum emission yields a magnification factor of 2.2 ± 0.3, with a 95% confidence upper limit on the magnification of 3.5. When corrected for lensing, the instantaneous star formation rate is 1320 M ☉ yr–1, with the 95% confidence lower limit around 830 M ☉ yr–1. The dust and stellar masses of HFLS3 from the same spectral energy distribution (SED) models are at the level of 3 × 108 M ☉ and ~5 × 1010 M ☉, respectively, with large systematic uncertainties on assumptions related to the SED model. With Hubble/WFC3 images, we also find diffuse near-IR emission about 0.5 arcsec (~3 kpc) to the southwest of HFLS3 that remains undetected in the ACS imaging data. The emission has a photometric redshift consistent with either z ~ 6 or a dusty galaxy template at z ~ 2.
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Formation and Evolution of Galaxies: Observations in Infrared and other Wavelengths
This IAC research group carries out several extragalactic projects in different spectral ranges, using space as well as ground-based telescopes, to study the cosmological evolution of galaxies and the origin of nuclear activity in active galaxies. The group is a member of the international consortium which built the SPIRE instrument for the
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