Molecular and atomic line surveys of galaxies I: the dense, star-forming phase as a beacon

TL;DR

This paper models the density and detectability of molecular and atomic emission lines in distant galaxies, predicting the capabilities of ALMA and SKA for discovering early universe star-forming systems.

Contribution

It introduces a new model linking HCN SLEDs to CO emission, providing lower limits on line counts and assessing future survey potentials with ALMA and SKA.

Findings

ALMA can detect z~10-12 [CII] emitters at 0.1-1 per hour

SKA can detect 40-70 low-J CO emitters per hour at z>3

Detection of metal-poor, CO-dark systems with [CII] is promising

Abstract

We predict the space density of molecular gas reservoirs in the Universe, and place a lower limit on the number counts of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen cyanide (HCN) molecular and [CII] atomic emission lines in blind redshift surveys in the submillimeter-centimeter spectral regime. Our model uses: (a) recently available HCN Spectral Line Energy Distributions (SLEDs) of local Luminous Infrared Galaxies (LIRGs, L_IR>10^11 L_sun), (b) a value for epsilon=SFR/M_dense(H_2) provided by new developments in the study of star formation feedback on the interstellar medium and (c) a model for the evolution of the infrared luminosity density. Minimal 'emergent' CO SLEDs from the dense gas reservoirs expected in all star-forming systems in the Universe are then computed from the HCN SLEDs since warm, HCN-bright gas will necessarily be CO-bright, with the dense star-forming gas phase setting an obvious minimum to the total molecular gas mass of any star-forming galaxy. We include [CII] as the most important of the far-infrared cooling lines. Optimal blind surveys with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) could potentially detect very distant (z~10-12) [CII] emitters in the >ULIRG galaxy class at a rate of ~0.1-1 per hour (although this prediction is strongly dependent on the star formation and enrichment history at this early epoch), whereas the (high-frequency) Square Kilometer Array (SKA) will be capable of blindly detecting z>3 low-J CO emitters at a rate of ~40-70 per hour. The [CII] line holds special promise for the detection of metal-poor systems with extensive reservoirs of CO-dark molecular gas where detection rates with ALMA can reach up to 2-7 per hour in Bands 4-6.