PHIBSS: molecular gas content and scaling relations in z~1-3 normal star forming galaxies

TL;DR

The PHIBSS survey studied molecular gas in normal star-forming galaxies at redshifts 1-3, revealing gas fractions, star formation relations, and galaxy dynamics during peak cosmic star formation.

Contribution

This work provides the first large CO survey of z~1-3 SFGs, quantifying gas content, scaling relations, and galaxy support mechanisms during peak star formation epoch.

Findings

Gas fractions are ~0.33 at z~1.2 and ~0.47 at z~2.2.

Molecular gas depletion timescale is ~0.7 Gyr.

Most galaxies are rotationally supported turbulent disks.

Abstract

We present PHIBSS, the IRAM Plateau de Bure high-z blue sequence CO 3-2 survey of the molecular gas properties in normal star forming galaxies (SFGs) near the cosmic star formation peak. PHIBSS provides 52 CO detections in two redshift slices at z~1.2 and 2.2, with log(M*(M_solar))>10.4 and log(SFR(M_solar/yr))>1.5. Including a correction for the incomplete coverage of the M*-SFR plane, we infer average gas fractions of ~0.33 at z~1.2 and ~0.47 at z~2.2. Gas fractions drop with stellar mass, in agreement with cosmological simulations including strong star formation feedback. Most of the z~1-3 SFGs are rotationally supported turbulent disks. The sizes of CO and UV/optical emission are comparable. The molecular gas - star formation relation for the z=1-3 SFGs is near-linear, with a ~0.7 Gyrs gas depletion timescale; changes in depletion time are only a secondary effect. Since this timescale is much less than the Hubble time in all SFGs between z~0 and 2, fresh gas must be supplied with a fairly high duty cycle over several billion years. At given z and M*, gas fractions correlate strongly with the specific star formation rate. The variation of specific star formation rate between z~0 and 3 is mainly controlled by the fraction of baryonic mass that resides in cold gas.