The Deep SPIRE HerMES Survey: Spectral Energy Distributions and their Astrophysical Indications at High Redshift

TL;DR

This study uses Herschel's SPIRE instrument to analyze the spectral energy distributions of galaxies at high redshift, revealing their contribution to cosmic infrared background and new IR-visible emission relationships.

Contribution

It provides detailed IR/submillimeter SEDs of galaxies at high redshift, addressing blending issues and identifying their role in cosmic background radiation.

Findings

Detection of highly luminous galaxies at z < 3

Discovery of a new IR-visible emission relationship

Quantification of galaxies' contribution to cosmic IR background

Abstract

The Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) on Herschel has been carrying out deep extragalactic surveys, one of whose aims is to establish spectral energy distributions (SED)s of individual galaxies spanning the infrared/submillimeter (IR/SMM) wavelength region. We report observations of the (IR/SMM) emission from the Lockman North field (LN) and Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey field North (GOODS-N). Because galaxy images in the wavelength range covered by Herschel generally represent a blend with contributions from neighboring galaxies, we present sets of galaxies in each field especially free of blending at 250, 350, and 500 microns. We identify the cumulative emission of these galaxies and the fraction of the far infrared cosmic background radiation they contribute. Our surveys reveal a number of highly luminous galaxies at redshift z ~< 3 and a novel relationship between infrared and visible emission that shows a dependence on luminosity and redshift.