Sign on

SAO/NASA ADS Astronomy Abstract Service

· Find Similar Abstracts (with default settings below)
· Electronic Refereed Journal Article (HTML)
· Full Refereed Journal Article (PDF/Postscript)
· arXiv e-print (arXiv:0908.0724)
· References in the article
· Citations to the Article (6) (Citation History)
· Refereed Citations to the Article
· SIMBAD Objects (23)
· NED Objects (23)
· Also-Read Articles (Reads History)
·
· Translate This Page
Title:
Compactness of cold gas in high-redshift galaxies
Authors:
Obreschkow, D.; Rawlings, S.
Affiliation:
AA(Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH), AB(Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH)
Publication:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 400, Issue 2, pp. 665-669. (MNRAS Homepage)
Publication Date:
12/2009
Origin:
MNRAS
Astronomy Keywords:
ISM: atoms , ISM: clouds , ISM: molecules , galaxies: evolution , galaxies: high-redshift
DOI:
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.15500.x
Bibliographic Code:
2009MNRAS.400..665O

Abstract

Galaxies in the early Universe were more compact and contained more molecular gas than today. In this paper, we revisit the relation between these empirical findings, and we quantitatively predict the cosmic evolution of the surface densities of atomic (HI) and molecular (H2) hydrogen in regular galaxies. Our method uses a pressure-based model for the H2/HI ratio of the interstellar medium, applied to ~3 × 107 virtual galaxies in the Millennium Simulation. We predict that, on average, the HI-surface density of these galaxies saturates at SigmaHI < 10Msolarpc-2 at all redshifts (z), while H2-surface densities evolve dramatically as . This scaling is dominated by a ~ (1 + z)2 surface brightness scaling originating from the ~ (1 + z)-1 size scaling of galaxies at high z. Current measurements of at high z, derived from CO observations, tend to have even higher values, which can be quantitatively explained by a selection bias towards merging systems. However, despite the consistency between our high-z predictions and the sparse empirical data, we emphasize that the empirical data potentially suffer from serious selection biases and that the semi-analytic models remain in many regards uncertain. As a case study, we investigate the cosmic evolution of simulated galaxies, which resemble the Milky Way at z = 0. We explicitly predict their HI and H2 distribution at z = 1.5, corresponding to the CO-detected galaxy BzK-21000, and at z = 3, corresponding to the primary science goal of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.
Bibtex entry for this abstract   Preferred format for this abstract (see Preferences)
  New!

Find Similar Abstracts:

Use: Authors
Title
Keywords (in text query field)
Abstract Text
Return: Query Results Return    items starting with number
Query Form
Database: Astronomy
Physics
arXiv e-prints