A massive core for a cluster of galaxies at a redshift of 4.3.

Autor: Miller TB; Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. tim.miller@yale.edu.; Department of Astronomy, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. tim.miller@yale.edu., Chapman SC; Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.; National Research Council, Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada., Aravena M; Núcleo de Astronomía, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile., Ashby MLN; Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, USA., Hayward CC; Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, USA.; Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, New York, NY, USA., Vieira JD; Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA., Weiß A; Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany., Babul A; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada., Béthermin M; Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, Marseille, France., Bradford CM; California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA., Brodwin M; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri, Kansas City, MO, USA., Carlstrom JE; Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.; Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.; Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.; Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA., Chen CC; European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany., Cunningham DJM; Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.; Department of Astronomy and Physics, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada., De Breuck C; European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany., Gonzalez AH; Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA., Greve TR; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, UK., Harnett J; School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia., Hezaveh Y; Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA., Lacaille K; Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.; Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada., Litke KC; Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA., Ma J; Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA., Malkan M; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA., Marrone DP; Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA., Morningstar W; Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA., Murphy EJ; National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA, USA., Narayanan D; Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA., Pass E; Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada., Perry R; Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada., Phadke KA; Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA., Rennehan D; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada., Rotermund KM; Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada., Simpson J; Institute for Astronomy, Royal Observatory, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.; Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham, UK., Spilker JS; Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA., Sreevani J; Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA., Stark AA; Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, USA., Strandet ML; Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany.; International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Bonn, Germany., Strom AL; Observatories of The Carnegie Institution for Science, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Nature [Nature] 2018 Apr; Vol. 556 (7702), pp. 469-472. Date of Electronic Publication: 2018 Apr 25.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0025-2
Abstrakt: Massive galaxy clusters have been found that date to times as early as three billion years after the Big Bang, containing stars that formed at even earlier epochs 1-3 . The high-redshift progenitors of these galaxy clusters-termed 'protoclusters'-can be identified in cosmological simulations that have the highest overdensities (greater-than-average densities) of dark matter 4-6 . Protoclusters are expected to contain extremely massive galaxies that can be observed as luminous starbursts 7 . However, recent detections of possible protoclusters hosting such starbursts 8-11 do not support the kind of rapid cluster-core formation expected from simulations 12 : the structures observed contain only a handful of starbursting galaxies spread throughout a broad region, with poor evidence for eventual collapse into a protocluster. Here we report observations of carbon monoxide and ionized carbon emission from the source SPT2349-56. We find that this source consists of at least 14 gas-rich galaxies, all lying at redshifts of 4.31. We demonstrate that each of these galaxies is forming stars between 50 and 1,000 times more quickly than our own Milky Way, and that all are located within a projected region that is only around 130 kiloparsecs in diameter. This galaxy surface density is more than ten times the average blank-field value (integrated over all redshifts), and more than 1,000 times the average field volume density. The velocity dispersion (approximately 410 kilometres per second) of these galaxies and the enormous gas and star-formation densities suggest that this system represents the core of a cluster of galaxies that was already at an advanced stage of formation when the Universe was only 1.4 billion years old. A comparison with other known protoclusters at high redshifts shows that SPT2349-56 could be building one of the most massive structures in the Universe today.
Databáze: MEDLINE