The Bright Extragalactic ALMA Redshift Survey (BEARS) II: Millimetre photometry of gravitational lens candidates

TL;DR

This study uses ALMA millimetre observations to analyze gravitational lens candidates and hyperluminous infrared galaxies, revealing consistent dust properties and improving photometric redshift estimates.

Contribution

It provides new millimetre photometry data for Herschel-selected sources, examines dust properties, and demonstrates the utility of ALMA data in refining photometric redshift predictions.

Findings

Most Herschel sources resolve into multiple ALMA sources.

Color temperatures show weak variation with redshift.

Including ALMA data reduces redshift estimation scatter.

Abstract

We present 101 and 151 GHz ALMA continuum images for 85 fields selected from Herschel observations that have 500 micron flux densities >80 mJy and 250-500 micron colours consistent with z > 2, most of which are expected to be gravitationally lensed or hyperluminous infrared galaxies. Approximately half of the Herschel 500 micron sources were resolved into multiple ALMA sources, but 11 of the 15 brightest 500 micron Herschel sources correspond to individual ALMA sources. For the 37 fields containing either a single source with a spectroscopic redshift or two sources with the same spectroscopic redshift, we examined the colour temperatures and dust emissivity indices. The colour temperatures only vary weakly with redshift and are statistically consistent with no redshift-dependent temperature variations, which generally corresponds to results from other samples selected in far-infrared, submillimetre, or millimetre bands but not to results from samples selected in optical or near-infrared bands. The dust emissivity indices, with very few exceptions, are largely consistent with a value of 2. We also compared spectroscopic redshifts to photometric redshifts based on spectral energy distribution templates designed for infrared-bright high-redshift galaxies. While the templates systematically underestimate the redshifts by ~15%, the inclusion of ALMA data decreases the scatter in the predicted redshifts by a factor of ~2, illustrating the potential usefulness of these millimetre data for estimating photometric redshifts.