The most distant, luminous, dusty star-forming galaxies: redshifts from NOEMA and ALMA spectral scans

TL;DR

This study uses NOEMA and ALMA spectral scans to determine redshifts of 21 distant, luminous, dusty star-forming galaxies, revealing some as highly luminous, potentially lensed, and progenitors of massive elliptical galaxies at high redshift.

Contribution

First spectroscopic redshifts obtained for a sample of extremely luminous, high-redshift dusty star-forming galaxies using NOEMA and ALMA spectral scans.

Findings

Secure redshifts for seven galaxies via multiple CO lines.

Identification of a lensed galaxy at z=6.027.

Most galaxies are among the most luminous known star-forming systems.

Abstract

We present 1.3- and/or 3-mm continuum images and 3-mm spectral scans, obtained using NOEMA and ALMA, of 21 distant, dusty, star-forming galaxies (DSFGs). Our sample is a subset of the galaxies selected by Ivison et al. (2016) on the basis of their extremely red far-infrared (far-IR) colours and low {\it Herschel} flux densities; most are thus expected to be unlensed, extraordinarily luminous starbursts at $z \gtrsim 4$, modulo the considerable cross-section to gravitational lensing implied by their redshift. We observed 17 of these galaxies with NOEMA and four with ALMA, scanning through the 3-mm atmospheric window. We have obtained secure redshifts for seven galaxies via detection of multiple CO lines, one of them a lensed system at $z=6.027$ (two others are also found to be lensed); a single emission line was detected in another four galaxies, one of which has been shown elsewhere to lie at $z=4.002$. Where we find no spectroscopic redshifts, the galaxies are generally less luminous by 0.3-0.4 dex, which goes some way to explaining our failure to detect line emission. We show that this sample contains amongst the most luminous known star-forming galaxies. Due to their extreme star-formation activity, these galaxies will consume their molecular gas in $\lesssim 100$ Myr, despite their high molecular gas masses, and are therefore plausible progenitors of the massive, `red-and-dead' elliptical galaxies at $z \approx 3$.