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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
Gone with the heat: A fundamental constraint on the imaging of dust and molecular gas in the early Universe
Royal Society Open Science, Volume 3, No. 6, Article 160025, Year 2016
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Description
Images of dust continuum and carbon monoxide (CO) line emission are powerful tools for deducing structural characteristics of galaxies, such as disc sizes, H2 gas velocity fields and enclosed H2 and dynamical masses. We report on a fundamental constraint set by the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on the observed structural and dynamical characteristics of galaxies, as deduced from dust continuum and CO-line imaging at high redshifts. As the CMB temperature rises in the distant Universe, the ensuing thermal equilibrium between the CMB and the cold dust and H2 gas progressively erases all spatial and spectral contrasts between their brightness distributions and the CMB. For high-redshift galaxies, this strongly biases the recoverable H2 gas and dust mass distributions, scale lengths, gas velocity fields and dynamical mass estimates. This limitation is unique to millimetre/submillimetre wavelengths and unlike its known effect on the global dust continuum and molecular line emission of galaxies, it cannot be addressed simply. We nevertheless identify a unique signature of CMB-affected continuum brightness distributions, namely an increasing rather than diminishing contrast between such brightness distributions and the CMB when the cold dust in distant galaxies is imaged at frequencies beyond the Raleigh-Jeans limit. For the molecular gas tracers, the same effect makes the atomic carbon lines maintain a larger contrast than the CO lines against the CMB. © 2016 The Authors.
Authors & Co-Authors
Zhiyu Zhang, Zhiyu
United Kingdom, Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh
Germany, Garching Bei Munchen
European Southern Observatory
Ivison, Robert J.
United Kingdom, Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh
Germany, Garching Bei Munchen
European Southern Observatory
Galametz, Maud
Germany, Garching Bei Munchen
European Southern Observatory
Smith, Matthew W.L.
United Kingdom, Cardiff
Cardiff University
Xilouris, Emmanuel M.
Greece, Athens
National Observatory of Athens
Statistics
Citations: 53
Authors: 5
Affiliations: 5
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1098/rsos.160025
ISSN:
20545703
Research Areas
Environmental