1210.4932 (C. M. Casey et al.)

A Population of z>2 Far-Infrared Herschel-SPIRE selected Starbursts    [PDF]

C. M. Casey, M. Béthermin, J. Bock, C. Bridge, D. Burgarella, E. Chapin, S. C. Chapman, D. L. Clements, A. Conley, A. Cooray, D. Farrah, E. Hatziminaoglou, R. J. Ivison, G. Magdis, S. J. Oliver, M. J. Page, D. Rigopoulou, I. G. Roseboom, D. B. Sanders, D. Scott, N. Seymour, I. Valtchanov, J. D. Vieira, M. Viero

We present spectroscopic observations for a sample of 36 Herschel-SPIRE 250-500um selected galaxies (HSGs) at 22 HyLIRGs in the literature which are detected serendipitously or via tailored surveys searching only for high-z HyLIRGs; therefore, we can place lower limits on the contribution of HSGs to the cosmic star formation rate density at (7+-2)x10^(-3)Msun/yr h^3Mpc^(-3) at z~2.5, which is >10% of the estimated total star formation rate density (SFRD) of the Universe from optical surveys. The contribution at z~4 has a lower limit of 3x10^(-3)Msun/yr h^3 Mpc^(-3), ~>20% of the estimated total SFRD. This highlights the importance of extremely infrared-luminous galaxies with high star formation rates to the build-up of stellar mass, even at the earliest epochs.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.4932