# 350 Micron Dust Emission from High Redshift Objects

## 1 Introduction

The study of molecular gas and dust is a significant observational tool for probing the physical conditions and star formation activity in local galaxies. Recent advances in observational techniques at submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths now permit such studies to be made at cosmological distances.

As a result of the IRAS survey many local objects are recognized as containing a large mass of dust and gas, such that the objects may be more luminous in the far-infrared (FIR) than in the optical. The question as to how many such objects there may be at cosmological distances, and whether they can account for the recently discovered FIR cosmic background (\[Puget et al. 1996\]; \[Fixsen et al. 1998\]; \[Hauser et al. 1998\]), is attracting much interest and spawning new instrument construction and new surveys (\[Hughes et al. 1998\]; \[Ivison et al. 1998\]; \[Kawara et al. 1998\]; \[Puget et al. 1999\]; \[Barger et al. 1998\]; \[Lilly et al. 1999\]). Existing submillimeter cameras on ground-based telescopes are not yet sensitive and large enough to detect distant objects at 350$`\mu `$m in arbitrary blank fields, e.g., the initial Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) SHARC survey which achieved 100 mJy ($`1\sigma `$) over about 10 square arcminutes (\[Phillips 1997\]). However, such cameras can measure the 350$`\mu `$m flux of objects of known position. A step forward in the field was the recognition of IRAS F10214+4724 as a high redshift object ($`z=2.286`$) by Rowan-Robinson et al. (1991). However, it has proved difficult to find many such objects to study. On the other hand, quasars have sometimes proved to exist in the environs of dusty galaxies (\[Haas et al. 1998\]; \[Lewis et al. 1998\]; \[Downes & Solomon 1998\]). Omont et al. (1996b) have shown by means of a $`1300\mu `$m survey of radio-quiet quasars that the dust emission at high redshifts can be detected in a substantial fraction of their project sources.

In this letter we present measurements at 350$`\mu `$m towards a sample of 20 sources with redshifts $`1.8<z<4.7`$ which were selected from different surveys and studies (references are given in Tables 1 & 2). The sources had previously been detected at longer wavelengths, and are predominantly from the work of Omont et al. (1996b) and Hughes, Dunlop & Rawlings (1997). A wavelength of 350$`\mu `$m roughly corresponds to the peak flux density of highly redshifted ($`z3`$) dust emission of objects with temperatures of 40 to 60 K. Together with measurements at longer wavelengths, it strongly constrains the dust temperature and, hence, the dust mass and, especially, the luminosity of the object. Some of these results were first presented by Benford et al. (1998). In this paper, we assume $`\mathrm{H}_0=h_{100}\times 100\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1`$.

## 2 Observations and Results

The measurements were made during a series of observing runs in 1997 February and October and 1998 January and April with the 10.4 m Leighton telescope of the CSO on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, during excellent weather conditions, with 225 GHz atmospheric opacities of $`<0.05`$ (corresponding to an opacity of $`<1.5`$ at 350$`\mu `$m). We used the CSO bolometer camera, SHARC, described by Wang et al. (1996) and Hunter, Benford, & Serabyn (1996). It consists of a linear 24 element close-packed monolithic silicon bolometer array operating at 300 mK. During the observations, only 20 channels were operational. The pixel size is $`5^{\prime \prime }`$ in the direction of the array and $`10^{\prime \prime }`$ in the cross direction. The weak continuum sources were observed using the pointed observing mode with the telescope secondary chopping in azimuth by 30<sup>′′</sup> at a rate of 4 Hz. The telescope was also nodded between the on and the off beams at a rate of $``$0.1Hz. The point-source sensitivity of SHARC at 350$`\mu `$m is $`1\mathrm{Jy}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}`$ and the beam size is $`9^{\prime \prime }`$ FWHM. All measurements were made at $`350\mu `$m with the exception of H 1413+117 which was also observed at $`450\mu `$m.

Pointing was checked regularly on nearby strong galactic sources which also served as secondary calibrators, and was found to be stable with a typical accuracy of $`<3^{\prime \prime }`$. The planets Mars, Saturn and Uranus served as primary flux calibrators. The absolute calibration was found to be accurate to within 20%. Repeated observations of H$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1413}+117`$ and F$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10214}+4724`$ confirmed a relative flux accuracy of $`20\%`$. The data were reduced using the CSO BADRS software package. Typical sensitivities ($`1\sigma `$) of $`20`$ mJy were achieved, after $`2500`$s of on–source integration time.

Nine sources were detected at levels of $`4\sigma `$ and above, as outlined in Table 1. Included are the $`z>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}`$ quasars BR 1202$``$0725, BRI 1335$``$0417 and HM 0000$``$263. Except for the Cloverleaf (H 1413+117; \[Barvainis, Antonucci, & Coleman 1992\]), the present measurements are the first reported detections for high redshift quasars at 350$`\mu `$m. Many of the sources were measured three or more times providing both consistency checks and improvements in the accuracy of the flux densities. The two strongest sources, H 1413+117 and IRAS F10214+4724, were often measured before starting the long ($``$2-3 hours) integrations on the weaker sources.

As an illustration of the data quality, Figure 1 shows the 350$`\mu `$m CSO–SHARC measurement towards BR 1202$``$0725 at $`z=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4.69}`$. This measurement corresponds to a total of 4 hours integration on source. The source is centered at offset zero. The other channels provide a measure of the neighboring blank sky emission and a reference for the quality of the detection.

11 sources with redshifts between 1.8 and 4.5 were not detected at 350$`\mu `$m, with flux density upper limits at the 3$`\sigma `$ level of 30 -$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}125}`$mJy. Table 2 lists their names, redshifts, 350$`\mu `$m flux density measurements with $`\pm 1\sigma `$ errors, and a 3$`\sigma `$ upper limit to their luminosities (see below).

Fig. 1 – The 350$`\mu `$m flux density measured in the bolometers of the SHARC array towards BR1202$``$0725 at $`z`$=4.69. Offsets are given in arcsec with respect to the reference channel number 10. The source is centered at offset zero. Emission is also seen in the two neighboring pixels because the bolometers sample the diffraction pattern of the telescope with a Nyquist sampling.

TABLE 2   
Sources with upper limits at 350$`\mu `$m    Source $`z`$ S<sub>350</sub> L<sub>FIR</sub> ($`3\sigma `$) Ref.   (mJy, $`\pm 1\sigma `$) (10$`{}_{}{}^{12}h_{100}^{2}`$ L)   BR2237$``$0607 4.56 $``$$`5\pm 15`$ $`<6`$ 1  BRI0952$``$0115 4.43 $``$$`8\pm 22`$ $`<8`$ 1,2  PSS0248+1802 4.43 $`75\pm 22`$ $`<9`$ 3  BR1117$``$1329 3.96 $``$$`27\pm 13`$ $`<4`$ 1  Q0302$``$0019 3.28 $``$$`34\pm 21`$ $`<5`$ 4  Q0636$`+`$680 3.18 $`123\pm 38`$ $`<9`$ 5  Q2231$``$0015 3.01 $`65\pm 24`$ $`<6`$ 4  MG0414$`+`$0534 2.64 $`24\pm 35`$ $`<8`$ 6  Q0050$``$2523 2.16 $``$$`69\pm 42`$ $`<9`$ 4  Q0842$`+`$3431 2.13 $``$$`16\pm 10`$ $`<2`$ 1  Q0838$`+`$3555 1.78 $``$$`39\pm 19`$ $`<4`$ 1  

References. — 1. Omont et al. (1996b); 2. Guilloteau et al. (1999); 3. Kennefick et al. (1995); 4. Hewett, Foltz & Chaffee (1995); 5. Sargent, Steidel & Boksenberg (1989); 6. Barvainis et al. (1998)

## 3 Discussion

Figure 2 displays the spectral energy distributions of the six sources detected at 350$`\mu `$m for which fluxes at two or more other wavelengths are available from the literature. In the following, we will first comment on individual sources and then discuss the physical properties of the objects.

The two radio-quiet, $`z>4`$ quasars, BR 1202$``$0725 and BRI 1335$``$0417, are exceptional objects with large masses of gas ($`10^{11}\mathrm{M}_{}`$) which have been detected in CO by Omont et al. (1996a) and Guilloteau et al. (1997). They both are clearly detected at 350$`\mu `$m with flux densities of $`106\pm 7`$ and $`52\pm 8`$mJy, respectively. However, BRI 0952$``$0115, which is the third $`z>4`$ quasar in which CO has been measured (\[Guilloteau et al. 1999\]), is not detected at 350$`\mu `$m at a 3$`\sigma `$ level of 65 mJy. This upper limit is consistent with the weak flux density of BRI 0952$``$0115 at 1.3 mm, $`2.8\pm 0.6\mathrm{mJy}`$ (\[Omont et al. 1996b\]; \[Guilloteau et al. 1999\]), and a temperature of $`50\mathrm{K}`$ (see below). The radio-quiet quasar HM 0000$``$263 at $`z=4.11`$, which was not detected at $`1.25\mathrm{mm}`$ using the 30m telescope (\[Omont et al. 1996b\]), due to its low declination, shows a large flux density at 350$`\mu `$m (134$`\pm `$29 mJy). Measurements at other wavelengths would be useful to further constrain the properties of this object.

The detection of the $`z=3.8`$ radiogalaxy 4C41.17 with a flux density of $`37\pm 9`$mJy at 350$`\mu `$m is one of the most sensitive measurements of this study. This sensitivity was reached after only 3/4 of an hour of on-source time and defines the limits which can be achieved with SHARC in the pointed observing mode under excellent weather conditions. A marginal detection ($`4\sigma `$) was achieved at 350$`\mu `$m of PC 2047+0123, a $`z=3.80`$ quasar studied by \[Ivison (1995)\]. Finally, the 350$`\mu `$m flux density of the Cloverleaf (H 1413+117) is significantly higher than the value published by Barvainis, Antonucci, & Coleman (1992), i.e. 293$`\pm 14`$mJy as compared to 189$`\pm 56`$mJy. We have also obtained for the Cloverleaf a 450$`\mu `$m flux density of $`226\pm 34\mathrm{mJy}`$ in excellent agreement with the measurement of $`224\pm 38\mathrm{mJy}`$ at $`438\mu `$m of Barvainis, Antonucci, & Coleman (1992), as shown in Figure 2.

A greybody was fit to the data points $`\mathrm{S}_\nu `$, for wavelengths of 350$`\mu `$m and longward, as a function of the rest frequency $`\nu =\nu _{\mathrm{obs}}/(1+z)`$, of the form

$$\mathrm{S}_\nu =\mathrm{B}_\nu \mathrm{\Omega }[1\mathrm{exp}(\tau )]\mathrm{with}\tau =(\nu /\nu _0)^\beta ,$$
(1)   
where $`\nu _0=2.4\mathrm{THz}`$ is the critical frequency at which the source becomes optically thin and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the solid angle of emission. The shape of the fitted greybody is very weakly dependent on the value of $`\nu _0`$ (\[Hughes et al. 1993\]). The data were each weighted by their statistical errors in the $`\chi ^2`$ minimization. This yields the dust temperature, dust mass (following Hildebrand (1983), using a dust mass emission coefficient at $`\nu _0`$ of $`1.9\mathrm{m}^2\mathrm{kg}^1`$), and luminosity of the sources. When $`\beta `$ is considered as a free parameter, we find that the average value of $`\beta =1.5\pm 0.2`$ for the detected sources. The fits shown in Figure 2 assume an emissivity index of $`\beta =1.5`$. We estimated the $`1\sigma `$ uncertainty in the temperature by examining the $`\chi _\nu ^2`$ hypersurface in the range $`1\beta 2`$, similarly to the method of Hughes et al. (1993). To evaluate the uncertainties associated with the mass and luminosity, derived from the fitted temperature and $`\beta =1.5`$, we used the maximum and minimum values of the mass and luminosity which are compatible with the data plus or minus the statistical error. No lensing amplification was taken into account. The temperature, dust mass and luminosities derived under these assumptions are given in Table 1. Two of the sources with upper limits have 1.25mm detections (\[Omont et al. 1996b\]), which, together with the 350$`\mu `$m data, yields an upper limit to their temperature. For Q$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0842}+3431`$, we find that $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{dust}}<40`$K while for BR$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1117}1329`$ a limit of $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{dust}}<60\mathrm{K}`$ is found. If the dust is at the temperature limit, these quasars have dust masses $`<10^8M_{}`$. For the other sources, an estimate of the maximum luminosity has been given under the assumption that each object has a temperature of 50 K and an emissivity index of $`\beta =1.5`$.

The total luminosity is probably underestimated, since a large luminosity contribution from higher temperature dust cannot be ruled out for most sources. However, in the case of H 1413+117 and IRAS F10214+4724, the available IRAS data allow us to fit an additional warm component. For IRAS F10214+4724, the cold component model carries roughly 60% of the total luminosity; in the case of H 1413+117, which has a hotter mid-IR spectrum, the total luminosity is underestimated by a factor of 3. Under the assumption that the majority of the luminosity is carried by the cold component (Table 1), the median luminosity-to-mass ratio is around 100 $`L_{}/M_{}`$, assuming a gas-to-dust ratio of $`500`$ similar to that of IRAS F10214+4724 and H 1413+117 (\[Downes et al. 1992\]; \[Barvainis et al. 1995\]) or of ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs), i.e. $`540\pm 290`$ (\[Sanders, Scoville, & Soifer 1991\]). The peak emission in the rest frame is found to be in the wavelength range $`\lambda _{\mathrm{peak}}6080\mu `$m (Figure 2) implying dust temperatures of 40-60 K (Table 1). These temperatures are nearly a factor of two lower than previously estimated for ultraluminous sources (e.g. \[Chini & Krügel 1994\]). If the temperature range we find is typical for the cold component of highly redshifted objects, multi-band photometric studies in the submillimeter/FIR, such as planned with FIRST, will provide reasonably accurate redshift estimates for the sources detected in deep field surveys.

The global star formation rate in each of the detected sources can be estimated using the relation of Thronson & Telesco (1986): $`\mathrm{SFR}\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{10}L_{\mathrm{FIR}}/L_{}h_{100}^2M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ with $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$0.8-2.1. For our mean luminosity of $`1.7\times 10^{13}h_{100}^2L_{}`$, this yields a SFR of $`2000M_{}h_{100}^2\mathrm{yr}^1`$ (uncorrected for lensing) if all the submillimeter flux is from a starburst component. If we assume a final stellar mass of $`2\times 10^{12}M_{}`$, a value appropriate to a giant elliptical like M87 (\[Okazaki & Inagaki 1984\]), then the timescale for formation in a single massive starburst is $`10^9h_{100}^2`$yr. Given the large mass of dust already present in these quasars, a substantial amount of this star formation must already have occurred. For the most distant quasars, where the age of the universe is similar to the derived formation timescale, this implies a very high redshift ($`z>5`$) for the era of initial star formation, in agreement with models of high redshift Lyman-alpha emitters (\[Haiman & Spaans 1999\]).

Acknowledgments

The CSO is funded by the NSF under contract AST96-15025. We thank T.R. Hunter for help with the fitting/derivation programming and D. Downes for helpful comments. One of us (P.C.) acknowledges financial supports from INSU (Programmes Grands Télescopes Etrangers) and PCMI.