2004/03/08 by R. Genzel, A. J. Baker, R. J. Ivison +25 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics #COSMIC cancer database #Cosmic time #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy formation and evolution #Luminous infrared galaxy #Physics #Population #Redshift #Scientific Research and Discoveries #Star formation #Stellar mass #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/10995020_17
7 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the Venice conference "Multiwavelength Mapping of Galaxy Formation and Evolution". A version with a higher-quality Figure 2 is available at http://www.rzg.mpg.de/~ajb/RGVenice-full.ps.gz
arxiv created 2004/03/08 · openalex publication_date 2006/01/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Luminous submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) have been known for some time to produce a substantial fraction of the far-IR/submillimeter background. New observations show that these systems are not only very luminous, but also very massive. Here we present results from (a) a survey of SMGs' molecular line emission, which has confirmed Keck optical redshifts and revealed their high gas and dynamical masses; and (b) a detailed case study of the rest-frame optical emission from one SMG, which has revealed its high metallicity and old stellar population. We infer a high z~2.7 comoving number density of galaxies with baryonic masses greater than 1011 solar masses; this is not accounted for in current semi-analytic models of galaxy evolution.