University of California Observatories-Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune University, Pune 411007, India.
Science. 2017 Mar 24;355(6331):1285-1288. doi: 10.1126/science.aal1737.
Gas surrounding high-redshift galaxies has been studied through observations of absorption line systems toward background quasars for decades. However, it has proven difficult to identify and characterize the galaxies associated with these absorbers due to the intrinsic faintness of the galaxies compared with the quasars at optical wavelengths. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, we report on detections of [C ii] 158-μm line and dust-continuum emission from two galaxies associated with two such absorbers at a redshift of ~ 4. Our results indicate that the hosts of these high-metallicity absorbers have physical properties similar to massive star-forming galaxies and are embedded in enriched neutral hydrogen gas reservoirs that extend well beyond the star-forming interstellar medium of these galaxies.
几十年来，人们一直通过观测背景类星体的吸收线系统来研究高红移星系周围的气体。然而，由于与光学波长的类星体相比，星系本身的亮度较低，因此很难识别和描述与这些吸收体相关的星系。利用阿塔卡马大型毫米/亚毫米波阵，我们报告了在红移约为 4 时，两个与两个这样的吸收体相关的星系的 [C ii] 158μm 线和尘埃连续谱的探测结果。我们的结果表明，这些高金属丰度吸收体的宿主具有与大质量恒星形成星系相似的物理性质，并且嵌入在富含中性氢气体的储层中，这些储层远远超出了这些星系的恒星形成星际介质。
