Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published September 2019 | Accepted Version + Published
Journal Article Open

Predictions for the spatial distribution of the dust continuum emission in 1 < z < 5 star-forming galaxies

Abstract

We present the first detailed study of the spatially resolved dust continuum emission of simulated galaxies at 1 < z < 5. We run the radiative transfer code SKIRT on a sample of submillimetre-bright galaxies drawn from the Feedback In Realistic Environments (FIRE) project. These simulated galaxies reach Milky Way masses by z = 2. Our modelling provides predictions for the full rest-frame far-ultraviolet-to-far-infrared spectral energy distributions of these simulated galaxies, as well as 25-pc resolution maps of their emission across the wavelength spectrum. The derived morphologies are notably different in different wavebands, with the same galaxy often appearing clumpy and extended in the far-ultraviolet yet an ordered spiral at far-infrared wavelengths. The observed-frame 870-μm half-light radii of our FIRE-2 galaxies are ∼0.5−4kpc⁠, consistent with existing ALMA observations of galaxies with similarly high redshifts and stellar masses. In both simulated and observed galaxies, the dust continuum emission is generally more compact than the cold gas and the dust mass, but more extended than the stellar component. The most extreme cases of compact dust emission seem to be driven by particularly compact recent star formation, which generates steep dust temperature gradients. Our results confirm that the spatial extent of the dust continuum emission is sensitive to both the dust mass and star formation rate distributions.

Additional Information

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model). Accepted 2019 May 8. Received 2019 May 3; in original form 2019 March 18. Published: 25 June 2019. This work was initiated as a project for the Kavli Summer Programme in Astrophysics held at the Center for Computational Astrophysics of the Flatiron Institute in 2018. The programme was co-funded by the Kavli Foundation and the Simons Foundation. We thank them for their generous support. RKC acknowledges funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) via a studentship and thanks Philip Best for helpful discussions and comments. DAA acknowledges support from a Flatiron Fellowship. The Flatiron Institute is supported by the Simons Foundation. DK was supported by NSF grant AST-1715101 and the Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. RF acknowledges financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number 157591). CAFG was supported by NSF through grants AST-1517491, AST-1715216, and CAREER award AST-1652522; by NASA through grant 17-ATP17-0067; by CXO through grant TM7-18007; by STScI through grant HST-AR-14562.001; and by a Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. The simulations were run using XSEDE, supported by NSF grant ACI-1053575, and Northwestern University's compute cluster 'Quest'.

Attached Files

Published - stz1736.pdf

Accepted Version - 1905.13234.pdf

Files

stz1736.pdf
Files (15.0 MB)
Name Size Download all
md5:8073635361e63a3b83fa0d486cb36cca
11.8 MB Preview Download
md5:3cd7d0bf6e0418b59f59e8772bed133b
3.1 MB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023