ALMA spectroscopic survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: CO luminosity functions and the evolution of the cosmic density of molecular gas

TL;DR

This study uses ALMA observations to measure the CO luminosity function and cosmic molecular gas density evolution up to redshift 4.5, revealing increased gas-rich galaxies at z~2 and a decline in gas density towards the present.

Contribution

First blind measurement of CO luminosity function and molecular gas density evolution using ALMA in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

Findings

CO luminosity function evolves with redshift, with more luminous galaxies at z~2.

Cosmic molecular gas density drops by a factor of 3-10 from z~2 to z~0.

Gas availability correlates with the cosmic star formation rate density.

Abstract

In this paper we use ASPECS, the ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the {\em Hubble} Ultra Deep Field (UDF) in band 3 and band 6, to place blind constraints on the CO luminosity function and the evolution of the cosmic molecular gas density as a function of redshift up to $z\sim 4.5$. This study is based on galaxies that have been solely selected through their CO emission and not through any other property. In all of the redshift bins the ASPECS measurements reach the predicted `knee' of the CO luminosity function (around $5\times10^{9}$ K km/s pc$^2$). We find clear evidence of an evolution in the CO luminosity function with respect to $z\sim 0$, with more CO luminous galaxies present at $z\sim 2$. The observed galaxies at $z\sim 2$ also appear more gas-rich than predicted by recent semi-analytical models. The comoving cosmic molecular gas density within galaxies as a function of redshift shows a factor 3-10 drop from $z \sim 2$ to $z \sim 0$ (with significant error bars), and possibly a decline at $z>3$. This trend is similar to the observed evolution of the cosmic star formation rate density. The latter therefore appears to be at least partly driven by the increased availability of molecular gas reservoirs at the peak of cosmic star formation ($z\sim2$).