Extreme nature of four blue-excess dust-obscured galaxies revealed by optical spectroscopy

TL;DR

This study presents optical spectroscopy of four BluDOGs, revealing they host extremely luminous, broad emission lines with high Eddington ratios, indicating they are in a rapid black hole growth phase.

Contribution

First detailed spectroscopic analysis of BluDOGs showing their extreme emission line properties and high accretion rates, supporting their role in galaxy evolution.

Findings

Broad CIV emission lines with large equivalent widths

High Eddington ratios indicating rapid black hole growth

Spectroscopic evidence supporting the blowing-out phase scenario

Abstract

We report optical spectroscopic observations of four blue-excess dust-obscured galaxies (BluDOGs) identified by Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam. BluDOGs are a sub-class of dust-obscured galaxies (DOGs, defined with the extremely red color $(i-[22])_{\rm AB} \geq 7.0$; Toba et al. 2015), showing a significant flux excess in the optical $g$- and $r$-bands over the power-law fits to the fluxes at the longer wavelengths. Noboriguchi et al. (2019) has suggested that BluDOGs may correspond to the blowing-out phase involved in a gas-rich major merger scenario. However the detailed properties of BluDOGs are not understood because of the lack of spectroscopic information. In this work, we carry out deep optical spectroscopic observations of four BluDOGs using Subaru/FOCAS and VLT/FORS2. The obtained spectra show broad emission lines with extremely large equivalent widths, and a blue wing in the CIV line profile. The redshifts are between 2.2 and 3.3. The averaged rest-frame equivalent widths of the CIV lines are $160\pm33$ $\mathrm{\mathring{A}}$, $\sim$7 times higher than the average of a typical type-1 quasar. The FWHMs of their velocity profiles are between 1990 and 4470 ${\rm km\ s^{-1}}$, and their asymmetric parameters are 0.05 and 0.25. Such strong CIV lines significantly affect the broad-band magnitudes, which is partly the origin of the blue excess seen in the spectral energy distribution of BluDOGs. Their estimated supermassive black hole masses are $1.1\times10^8 < M_{\rm BH}/M_\odot < 5.5 \times 10^8$. The inferred Eddington ratios of the BluDOGs are higher than 1 ($1.1< \lambda_{\rm Edd} < 3.8$), suggesting that the BluDOGs are in a rapidly evolving phase of supermassive black holes.