The rapid assembly of an elliptical galaxy of 400 billion solar masses at a redshift of 2.3
| Autor: | Fu, Hai, Cooray, Asantha, Feruglio, C., Ivison, R. J., Riechers, D. A., Gurwell, M., Bussmann, R. S., Harris, A. I., Altieri, B., Aussel, H., Baker, A. J., Bock, J., Boylan-Kolchin, M., Bridge, C., Calanog, J. A., Casey, C. M., Cava, A., Chapman, S. C., Clements, D. L., Conley, A., Cox, P., Farrah, D., Frayer, D., Hopwood, R., Jia, J., Magdis, G., Marsden, G., Martinez-Navajas, P., Negrello, M., Neri, R., Oliver, S. J., Omont, A., Page, M. J., Perez-Fournon, I., Schulz, B., Scott, D., Smith, A., Vaccari, M., Valtchanov, I., Vieira, J. D., Viero, M., Wang, L., Wardlow, J. L., Zemcov, M. |
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| Rok vydání: | 2013 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Nature 498:338-341,2013 |
| Druh dokumentu: | Working Paper |
| DOI: | 10.1038/nature12184 |
| Popis: | Stellar archeology shows that massive elliptical galaxies today formed rapidly about ten billion years ago with star formation rates above several hundreds solar masses per year (M_sun/yr). Their progenitors are likely the sub-millimeter-bright galaxies (SMGs) at redshifts (z) greater than 2. While SMGs' mean molecular gas mass of 5x10^10 M_sun can explain the formation of typical elliptical galaxies, it is inadequate to form ellipticals that already have stellar masses above 2x10^11 M_sun at z ~ 2. Here we report multi-wavelength high-resolution observations of a rare merger of two massive SMGs at z = 2.3. The system is currently forming stars at a tremendous rate of 2,000 M_sun/yr. With a star formation efficiency an order-of-magnitude greater than that of normal galaxies, it will quench the star formation by exhausting the gas reservoir in only ~200 million years. At a projected separation of 19 kiloparsecs, the two massive starbursts are about to merge and form a passive elliptical galaxy with a stellar mass of ~4x10^11 M_sun. Our observations show that gas-rich major galaxy mergers, concurrent with intense star formation, can form the most massive elliptical galaxies by z ~ 1.5. Comment: Appearing in Nature online on May 22 and in print on May 30. Submitted here is the accepted version (including the Supplementary Information), see nature.com for the final version |
| Databáze: | arXiv |
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