The ALMA Reionization Era Bright Emission Line Survey: The molecular gas content of galaxies at z ~ 7
Author
Aravena, M.Heintz, K.
Dessauges-Zavadsky, M.
Oesch, P.
Algera, H.
Bouwens, R.
da Cunha, E.
Dayal, P.
de Looze, I.
Ferrara, A.
Fudamoto, Y.
Gonzalez, V.
Graziani, L.
Hygate, A.P.S.
Inami, H.
Pallottini, A.
Schneider, R.
Schouws, S.
Sommovigo, L.
Topping, M.
van der Werf, P.
Palla, M.
Affiliation
Steward Observatory, University of ArizonaIssue Date
2024-01-31
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EDP SciencesCitation
A&A, 682, A24 (2024)Journal
Astronomy and AstrophysicsRights
© The Authors 2024. Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
A key to understanding the formation of the first galaxies is to quantify the content of the molecular gas as the fuel for star formation activity through the epoch of reionization. In this paper, we use the 158μm [C II] fine-structure emission line as a tracer of the molecular gas in the interstellar medium (ISM) in a sample of z = 6.5- 7.5 galaxies recently unveiled by the Reionization Era Bright Line Emission Survey, REBELS, with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. We find substantial amounts of molecular gas (~1010.5 Mo˙), comparable to those found in lower-redshift galaxies for similar stellar masses (~1010 Mo˙). The REBELS galaxies appear to follow the standard scaling relations of the molecular gas-to-stellar mass ratio (μmol) and the gas-depletion timescale (tdep) with distance to the star-forming main sequence expected from extrapolations of z ~ 1- 4 observations. We find median values at z ~ 7 of μmol = 2.6-1.44.1 and tdep = 0.5-0.14+0.26 Gyr, indicating that the baryonic content of these galaxies is dominated by the gas phase and evolves little from z ~ 7 to 4. Our measurements of the cosmic density of molecular gas, log(ρmol/(Mo˙ Mpc-3)) = 6.34-0.31+0.34, indicate a steady increase by an order of magnitude from z ~ 7 to 4. © The Authors 2024.Note
Open access articleISSN
0004-6361Version
Final Published Versionae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1051/0004-6361/202347281
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © The Authors 2024. Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.