Spatially Resolved [C ii] Emission in SPT0346-52: A Hyper-starburst Galaxy Merger at z ~ 5.7

Katrina C. Litke*, Daniel P. Marrone, Justin S. Spilker, Manuel Aravena, Matthieu Béthermin, Scott Chapman, Chian Chou Chen, Carlos De Breuck, Chenxing Dong, Anthony Gonzalez, Thomas R. Greve, Christopher C. Hayward, Yashar Hezaveh, Sreevani Jarugula, Jingzhe Ma, Warren Morningstar, Desika Narayanan, Kedar Phadke, Cassie Reuter, Joaquin VieiraAxel Weiss

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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    Abstract

    SPT0346-52 is one of the most most luminous and intensely star-forming galaxies in the universe, with and . In this paper, we present ALMA observations of the 158 μm emission line in this z = 5.7 dusty star-forming galaxy. We use a pixellated lensing reconstruction code to spatially and kinematically resolve the source-plane and rest-frame 158 μm dust continuum structure at ~700 pc (~012) resolution. We discuss the deficit with a pixellated study of the L [C ii]/L FIR ratio in the source plane. We find that individual pixels within the galaxy follow the same trend found using unresolved observations of other galaxies, indicating that the deficit arises on scales 700 pc. The lensing reconstruction reveals two spatially and kinematically separated components (~1 kpc and ~500 km s−1 apart) connected by a bridge of gas. Both components are found to be globally unstable, with Toomre Q instability parameters everywhere. We argue that SPT0346-52 is undergoing a major merger, which is likely driving the intense and compact star formation.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number80
    JournalAstrophysical Journal
    Volume870
    Issue number2
    Number of pages13
    ISSN0004-637X
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2019

    Keywords

    • Galaxies: high-redshift
    • Galaxies: starburst

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