A search for cold molecular outflows in cosmic noon galaxies

TL;DR

This study investigates the presence and extent of cold molecular gas in the circumgalactic medium of typical star-forming galaxies at cosmic noon, finding that molecular outflows are weak and do not significantly extend beyond the stellar regions.

Contribution

It provides the first systematic search for cold molecular outflows in main-sequence galaxies at cosmic noon using ALMA CO(2-1) data, revealing their weakness and limited spatial extent.

Findings

Molecular gas extends to ~12 kpc, similar to stellar emission.

No significant broad wings indicating strong outflows were detected.

Weak outflows do not expel substantial molecular gas to CGM scales.

Abstract

The flow of baryons in and out of galaxies is the primary driver for galaxy evolution. In addition to depleting the gas reservoir of galaxies, outflows also enrich their circumgalactic medium (CGM) with processed gas -- which can further impact the next stages of gas accretion, resulting in the presence of molecular gas beyond the stellar component of galaxies, out to CGM scales. Here, we aim to search for cold molecular gas (MH2) in the CGM of typical main-sequence (MS) star-forming galaxies (SFGs) at cosmic noon (zmed=1.3), where we expect outflows to be particularly prominent. Using Band 3 CO(2-1) data from the Atacama Large Millimeter and submillimeter Array (ALMA), we study the spatial extent of the MH2 of a sample of 26 SFGs, via stacking techniques. We compare this extent to that of the stacked stellar emission of our sample traced by UltraVISTA Ks band data. We also search for broad wings in the stacked spectrum which can be indicative of ongoing outflows. Within the noise level of the observations, we find that the total intrinsic MH2 of our sample spatially extends to scales of ~12 kpc, similarly to the stellar emission (~13 kpc). We do not find broad wings in the stacked spectrum that could hint at ongoing molecular outflows, but we find a tentative minor excess of CO(2-1) emission at negative velocities that might be indicative of outflows, where the redshifted gas is optically thick. The absence of high-velocity molecular gas suggests that molecular outflows traced by CO(2-1) emission are weak in MS SFGs at cosmic noon. These weak outflows thus fail to expel a significant amount of molecular gas to CGM scales, as indicated by the absence of molecular emission extending beyond the stellar emission region. This lack of CO emission at large radii could also imply that the molecular gas does not survive at such distances.