Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Massive Protocluster with Two Substructures at $z \simeq 3.1$

TL;DR

This study spectroscopically confirms a massive protocluster at z ≈ 3.1 with two substructures, estimating their future evolution into a single galaxy cluster by z ≈ 0.1-0.4, and identifying a core of intensely star-forming galaxies.

Contribution

First spectroscopic confirmation of a massive protocluster with two substructures at z ≈ 3.1, including mass estimates and future evolution predictions.

Findings

Two overdensities with >12 confirmed members each.

Estimated total mass of the protocluster at z ≈ 0.5-0.8.

High star formation rate core with 2700 M_sun/yr in 280 cMpc^3 volume.

Abstract

We present the results of a Keck and NOEMA spectroscopic survey of 507 galaxies, where we confirm the presence of two massive overdensities at $z = 3.090 - 3.110$ and $z = 3.133 - 3.155$ in the neighborhood of the GOODS-N, each with over a dozen spectroscopically confirmed members. We find that both of these have galaxy overdensities of NIR-detected galaxies of $\delta_{\rm gal, obs} = 6 - 9$ within corrected volumes of $(6 - 7) \times 10^3~{\rm cMpc}^3$. We estimate the properties of the $z = 0$ descendants of these overdensities using a spherical collapse model and find that both should virialize by $z \simeq 0.5 - 0.8$, with total masses of $M_{\rm tot} \simeq (6 - 7) \times 10^{14}~{\rm M}_\odot$. The same spherical collapse calculations, as well as a clustering-of-clusters statistical analysis, suggest a >80% likelihood that the two overdensities will collapse into a single cluster with $M_{\rm tot} = (1.0 - 1.5) \times 10^{15}~{\rm M}_\odot$ by $z \sim 0.1-0.4$. The $z = 3.14$ substructure contains a core of four bright dusty star-forming galaxies with $\Sigma {\rm SFR} = 2700 \pm 700~{\rm M}_\odot~{\rm yr}^{-1}$ in a volume of only 280 ${\rm cMpc}^3$.