A far-infrared spectroscopic survey of intermediate redshift (ultra) luminous infrared galaxies

Magdis, Georgios E., Rigopoulou, D., Hopwood, R., Huang, J.-S., Farrah, D., Pearson, C., Alonso-Herrero, Almudena, Bock, J. J., Clements, D., Cooray, A., Griffin, Matthew Joseph ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0033-177X, Oliver, S., Perez Fournon, I., Riechers, D., Swinyard, Bruce, Scott, D., Thatte, N., Valtchanov, I. and Vaccari, M. 2014. A far-infrared spectroscopic survey of intermediate redshift (ultra) luminous infrared galaxies. Astrophysical Journal 796 (1) , 63. 10.1088/0004-637X/796/1/63

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Abstract

We present Herschel far-IR photometry and spectroscopy as well as ground-based CO observations of an intermediate redshift (0.21 ≤ z ≤ 0.88) sample of Herschel-selected (ultra)-luminous infrared galaxies (L IR > 1011.5 L ☉). With these measurements, we trace the dust continuum, far-IR atomic line emission, in particular [C II] 157.7 μm, as well as the molecular gas of z ~ 0.3 luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs and ULIRGs) and perform a detailed investigation of the interstellar medium of the population. We find that the majority of Herschel-selected intermediate redshift (U)LIRGs have L C II /L FIR ratios that are a factor of about 10 higher than that of local ULIRGs and comparable to that of local normal and high-z star-forming galaxies. Using our sample to bridge local and high-z [C II] observations, we find that the majority of galaxies at all redshifts and all luminosities follow an L C II –L FIR relation with a slope of unity, from which local ULIRGs and high- z active-galactic-nucleus-dominated sources are clear outliers. We also confirm that the strong anti-correlation between the L C II /L FIR ratio and the far-IR color L 60/L 100 observed in the local universe holds over a broad range of redshifts and luminosities, in the sense that warmer sources exhibit lower L C II /L FIR at any epoch. Intermediate redshift ULIRGs are also characterized by large molecular gas reservoirs and by lower star formation efficiencies compared to that of local ULIRGs. The high L C II /L FIR ratios, the moderate star formation efficiencies (L IR/$L^{\prime }_{\rm CO}$ or L IR/$M_{\rm H_{\rm 2}}$), and the relatively low dust temperatures of our sample (which are also common characteristics of high-z star-forming galaxies with ULIRG-like luminosities) indicate that the evolution of the physical properties of (U)LIRGs between the present day and z > 1 is already significant by z ~ 0.3.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics
Uncontrolled Keywords:	galaxies: evolution; galaxies: star formation; gamma rays: ISM; infrared: galaxies; infrared: general
Publisher:	American Astronomical Society
ISSN:	1538-4357
Funders:	STFC
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	26 April 2017
Date of Acceptance:	16 September 2014
Last Modified:	04 May 2023 18:13
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/72422

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