K band SINFONI spectra of two $z \sim 5$ SMGs: upper limits to the un-obscured star formation from [O II] optical emission line searches

TL;DR

This study uses deep K band spectra to search for [O II] emission in two high-redshift SMGs, setting upper limits on unobscured star formation rates and revealing significant dust obscuration compared to IR estimates.

Contribution

First direct upper limits on unobscured star formation in $z\, extasciitilde 5$ SMGs using [O II] line searches, highlighting the importance of dust extinction.

Findings

[O II] emission undetected, constraining unobscured SFR to 10-40 M_sun/yr.

Discrepancy between [O II]-based and IR-based SFRs indicates high internal extinction.

No [O II] emission detected in Lyα1, challenging previous claims.

Abstract

We present deep SINFONI K band integral field spectra of two submillimeter (SMG) galaxy systems: BR 1202-0725 and J1000+0234, at $z=4.69$ and $4.55$ respectively. Spectra extracted for each object in the two systems do not show any signature of the [O II]$\lambda\lambda$3726,29\AA$\,$ emission-lines, placing upper flux limits of $3.9$ and $2.5 \times 10^{-18}\,$${\rm erg\,s^{-1}\,\,cm^{-2} \,}$ for BR 1202-0725 and J1000+0234, respectively. Using the relation between the star formation rate (SFR) and the luminosity of the [O II] doublet from Kennicutt (1998), we estimate unobscured SFR upper limits of $\sim$ $10-15\,\rm M_\odot\,yr^{-1} \,$ and $\sim$ $30-40\,\rm M_\odot\,yr^{-1} \,$ for the objects of the two systems, respectively. For the SMGs, these values are at least two orders of magnitude lower than those derived from SED and IR luminosities. The differences on the SFR values would correspond to internal extinction of, at least, $3.4 - 4.9$ and $2.1 - 3.6$ mag in the visual for BR 1202-0725 and J1000+0234 SMGs, respectively. The upper limit for the [O II]-derived SFR in one of the LAEs (Ly$\alpha2$) in the BR1202-0725 system is at least one order of magnitude lower than the previous SFR derived from infrared tracers, while both estimates are in good agreement for Ly$\alpha$1. The lower limits to the internal extinction in these two Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs) are $0.6$ mag and $1.3$ mag, respectively. No evidence for the previously claimed (Ohta et al. 2000) [O II] emission associated with Ly$\alpha$1 is identified in our data, implying that residuals of the K-band sky emission lines after subtraction in medium-band imaging data could provide the adequate flux.