A close relationship at z~2: submillimetre galaxies and BzK-selected galaxies

TL;DR

This study explores the connection between submillimetre galaxies and BzK-selected galaxies at redshift ~2, revealing that SMGs are a small subset of BzKs, likely representing merging systems with moderate star formation enhancement.

Contribution

It provides the first robust optical identification of SMGs as BzKs and estimates their surface density, suggesting most SMGs are merging BzKs with moderate star formation increases.

Findings

Almost all K-faint SMGs are BzKs.

Identified 6 new robust BzK-SMG associations.

SMGs constitute about 1% of BzKs at z~2.

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between two massive star-forming galaxy populations at redshift z~ 2; i.e. submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) and BzK-selected galaxies (BzKs). Out of 60 SMGs found in the Subaru/XMM-Newton deep field, we collect optical--NIR photometry of 28 radio counterparts for 24 SMGs, based on refined sky positions with a radio map for 35 SMGs (Ivison et al. 2007). We find a correlation between their K-band magnitudes and BzK [= (z-K)-(B-z)] colours: almost all of the K-faint (K_AB > 21.3) radio-detected SMGs have BzK>-0.2, and therefore BzKs. This result gives strong support to perform direct optical identification of SMGs by searching for BzKs around SMGs. We calculate the formal significance (P' value) for each of the BzK associations around radio-undetected SMGs, and find 6 new robust identifications, including one double identification. From this analysis, we obtain the current best estimate on the surface density of BzK-selected SMGs, which indicates that only ~1 per cent of BzKs are SMGs. If BzKs are normal disk-like galaxies at z~ 2 as indicated by the correlation between their star formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass and also by dynamical properties, SMGs are likely to be merging BzKs. In this case, a typical enhancement of SFR due to merging is only a factor of ~ 3, which is an order of magnitude lower than that of local ULIRGs. This may indicate that most of the merging BzKs could be observed as SMGs. Considering a possible high fraction of mergers at z~ 2 (at least it would be higher than the fraction at z> 1 of ~ 10 per cent), it is rather puzzling to find such a low fraction of SMGs in the progenitor population, i.e. BzKs.