2002/03/12 by James S. Dunlop, Dunlop, James S.
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0203183
4 pages, 1 postscript figure. To appear in "A New Era in Cosmology", ASP Conference Proceedings, eds. T. Shanks and N. Metcalfe
arxiv created 2002/03/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
Determing the nature of the bright sub-mm sources and their role in the process of galaxy formation is likely to be a major focus of extra-galactic research over the next few years. In particular, we would like to know if these sources are the progenitors of today's massive elliptical galaxies, or alternatively arise from short-lived, albeit spectacular starbursts within haloes of unexceptional mass. This question can be addressed from a number of different directions, one of which is to compare the masses of sub-mm host galaxies with those of other known massive high-redshift objects. Here I make a first attempt to do this by exploring whether the few well-studied sub-mm/mm sources are consistent with the well-established K-z relation for powerful radio galaxies. Out to z = 3 this appears to be the case, providing evidence that bright sub-mm sources are indeed destined to be massive ellipticals. At higher redshifts there is a suggestion that sub-mm galaxies are signficantly fainter at K than their radio-selected counterparts, but at present it is unclear whether this indicates a significant difference in stellar mass or the increasing impact of dust obscuration on the rest-frame light from the sub-mm hosts.