This paper describes how the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) project prepared for and successfully began Curiosity rover Mars operations from their homes in response to the COVID-19 work-from-home orders. In a very short period, the team developed procedures and executed a remote operations readiness test in parallel with the team's support for nominal operations. Continuing regular rover operations with an entirely remote team had not previously been considered feasible due to a variety of factors. These included both the human factors, such as multiple concurrent person-to-person interactions of the uplink planning team, as well as technical factors, such as reliance on powerful workstations dedicated to graphically intensive software tools used for planning. The test was conducted on March 12, 2020, with both the downlink and uplink teams successfully simulating a near full planning day. The JPL administration announced the transition to mandatory telework on Monday, March 16. MSL stood down the uplink planning originally scheduled for the next day while downlink continued monitoring the rover. Full operations then resumed per schedule with nearly the entire operations team teleworking on Friday, March 20, during which the team planned rover activities for three Martian days (sols). These activities included the successful drilling of the "Edinburgh" rock target, a highly complex robotic arm contact science activity. As of October 1, 2020, the Mars Science Laboratory mission operations team has conducted 88 remote tactical uplink shifts for a total of 190 sols of planned rover activity, which accounts for more than 6% of the mission to date. In this period the rover has completed four drilling campaigns and driven over 1160 meters towards its next major science target - a sulfate bearing geologic unit at the foot of Mount Sharp. Success has not been without its challenges. Many of these have been addressed while others will remain in some form until the team can safely return to JPL, which in turn is the largest challenge for the future.
We investigate extremely luminous dusty galaxies in the environments around WISE-selected hot dust obscured galaxies (Hot DOGs) and WISE/radio-selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at average redshifts of z = 2.7 and z = 1.7, respectively. Previous observations have detected overdensities of companion submillimetre-selected sources around 10 Hot DOGs and 30 WISE/radio AGNs, with overdensities of 2 - 3 and 5 - 6 , respectively. We find that the space densities in both samples to be overdense compared to normal star-forming galaxies and submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) in the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey (S2CLS). Both samples of companion sources have consistent mid-IR colours and mid-IR to submm ratios as SMGs. The brighter population around WISE/radio AGNs could be responsible for the higher overdensity reported. We also find the star formation rate density (SFRDs) are higher than the field, but consistent with clusters of dusty galaxies. WISE-selected AGNs appear to be good signposts for protoclusters at high redshift on arcmin scales. The results reported here provide an upper limit to the strength of angular clustering using the two-point correlation function. Monte Carlo simulations show no angular correlation, which could indicate protoclusters on scales larger than the SCUBA-2 1.5arcmin scale maps.
We present Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 F160W imaging and infrared spectral energy distributions for 12 extremely luminous, obscured active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at 1.8 < z < 2.7. selected via "hot, dust-obscured" mid-infrared colors. Their infrared luminosities span (2-15) x 10(13) L-circle dot, making them among the most luminous objects in the universe at z similar to 2. In all cases, the infrared emission is consistent with arising at least for the. most part from AGN activity. The AGN fractional luminosities are higher than those in either submillimeter galaxies. or AGNs selected via other mid-infrared criteria. Adopting the G, M-20, and A morphological parameters, together with traditional classification boundaries, infers that three-quarters of the sample are mergers. Our sample does not, however, show any correlation between the considered morphological parameters and either infrared luminosity or AGN fractional luminosity. Moreover, the asymmetries and effective radii of our sample are distributed identically to those of massive galaxies at z similar to 2. We conclude that our sample is not preferentially associated with mergers, though a significant merger fraction is still plausible. Instead, we propose that our sample includes. examples of the massive galaxy population at z similar to 2 that harbor a briefly luminous, "flickering" AGN. and in which the G and M-20 values have been perturbed. due to either the AGN. and/or the earliest formation stages of a bulge in an inside-out manner. Furthermore, we find that the mass assembly of the central black holes in our sample leads the mass assembly of any bulge component. Finally, we speculate that our sample represents. a small fraction of the immediate antecedents of compact star-forming galaxies at z similar to 2.
Observed at z = 4.601 and with L_bol = 3.5 x 10^14 Lsun, W2246-0526 is the most luminous galaxy known in the Universe, and hosts a deeply-buried active galactic nucleus (AGN)/super-massive black hole (SMBH). Discovered using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), W2246-0526 is classified as a Hot Dust Obscured Galaxy (Hot DOG), based on its luminosity and dust temperature. Here we present spatially resolved ALMA [CII]157.7um observations of W2246-0526, providing unique insight into the kinematics of its interstellar medium (ISM). The measured [CII]-to-far-infrared ratio is 2 x 10^-4, implying ISM conditions that compare only with the most obscured, compact starbursts and AGN in the local Universe today. The spatially resolved [CII] line is strikingly uniform and very broad, 500-600 km/s wide, extending throughout the entire galaxy over about 2.5 kpc, with modest shear. Such a large, homogeneous velocity dispersion indicates a highly turbulent medium. W2246-0526 is unstable in terms of the energy and momentum that are being injected into the ISM, strongly suggesting that the gas is being blown away from the system isotropically, likely reflecting a cathartic state on its road to becoming an un-obscured quasar. W2246-0526 provides an extraordinary laboratory to study and model the properties and kinematics of gas in an extreme environment under strong feedback, at a time when the Universe was 1/10 of its current age: a system pushing the limits that can be reached during galaxy formation.
We report on the discovery of a z = 1.58 mature cluster around the high-redshift radio galaxy 7C 1753+6311, first identified in the Clusters Around Radio-loud active galactic nuclei survey. Two-thirds of the excess galaxies within the central 1 Mpc lie on a red sequence with a color that is consistent with an average formation redshift of z(f) similar to 3. We show that 80 +/- 6% of the red sequence galaxies in the cluster core are quiescent, while the remaining 20% are red due to dusty star formation. We demonstrate that the cluster has an enhanced quiescent galaxy fraction that is three times that of the control field. We also show that this enhancement is mass dependent: 91 +/- 9% of the M-* > 10(10.5)M(circle dot) cluster galaxies are quiescent, compared to only 36 +/- 2% of field galaxies, whereas the fraction of quiescent galaxies with lower masses is the same in the cluster and field environments. The presence of a dense core and a well-formed, quiescent red sequence suggest that this is a mature cluster. This means that distant radio galaxies do not solely reside in young, uncollapsed protoclusters, rather they can be found in clusters in a wide range of evolutionary states.
We describe the search for Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) near the submillimeter-bright starburst galaxy HFLS3 at z = 6.34 and a study on the environment of this massive galaxy during the end of reionization. We performed two independent selections of LBGs on images obtained with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) by combining nondetections in bands blueward of the Lyman break and color selection. A total of 10 objects fulfilling the LBG selection criteria at z > 5.5 ?> were selected over the 4.54 and 55.5 arcmin2 covered by our HST and GTC images, respectively. The photometric redshift, UV luminosity, and star formation rate of these sources were estimated with models of their spectral energy distribution. These z ∼ 6 ?> candidates have physical properties and number densities in agreement with previous results. The UV luminosity function at z ∼ 6 and a Voronoi tessellation analysis of this field show no strong evidence for an overdensity of relatively bright objects ( m F 105 W < ?> 25.9) associated with HFLS3. However, the overdensity parameter deduced from this field and the surface density of objects cannot exclude definitively the LBG overdensity hypothesis. Moreover, we identified three faint objects at less than 3″ from HFLS3 with color consistent with those expected for z ∼ 6 galaxies. Deeper data are needed to confirm their redshifts and to study their association with HFLS3 and the galaxy merger that may be responsible for the massive starburst.
We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 870 μm (345 GHz) data for 49 high-redshift (0.47 < z < 2.85), luminous ( 11.7 < log ( L bol / L ⊙ ) < 14.2 ?> ) radio-powerful active galactic nuclei (AGNs), obtained to constrain cool dust emission from starbursts concurrent with highly obscured radiative-mode black hole (BH) accretion in massive galaxies that possess a small radio jet. The sample was selected from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with extremely steep (red) mid-infrared colors and with compact radio emission from NVSS/FIRST. Twenty-six sources are detected at 870 μm, and we find that the sample has large mid- to far-infrared luminosity ratios, consistent with a dominant and highly obscured quasar. The rest-frame 3 GHz radio powers are 24.7 < log ( P 3.0 GHz / W Hz − 1 ) < 27.3 , ?> and all sources are radio-intermediate or radio-loud. BH mass estimates are 7.7 < log(MBH/M⊙) < 10.2. The rest-frame 1–5 μm spectral energy distributions are very similar to the “Hot DOGs” (hot dust-obscured galaxies), and steeper (redder) than almost any other known extragalactic sources. ISM masses estimated for the ALMA-detected sources are 9.9 < log (MISM/M⊙) < 11.75 assuming a dust temperature of 30 K. The cool dust emission is consistent with star formation rates reaching several thousand M⊙ yr−1, depending on the assumed dust temperature, but we cannot rule out the alternative that the AGN powers all the emission in some cases. Our best constrained source has radiative transfer solutions with approximately equal contributions from an obscured AGN and a young (10–15 Myr) compact starburst.
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission has unveiled a rare population of high-redshift (z = 1-4.6), dusty, hyper-luminous galaxies, with infrared luminosities L-IR > 10(13) L-circle dot, and sometimes exceeding 10(14) L-circle dot. Previous work has shown that their dust temperatures and overall far-infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) are significantly hotter than expected to be powered by star formation. We present here an analysis of the rest-frame optical through mid-infrared SEDs for a large sample of these so-called "hot, dust-obscured galaxies" (Hot DOGs). We find that the SEDs of Hot DOGs are generally well modeled by the combination of a luminous, yet obscured active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that dominates the rest-frame emission at lambda > 1 mu m and the bolometric luminosity output, and a less luminous host galaxy that is responsible for the bulk of the rest optical/UV emission. Even though the stellar mass of the host galaxies may be as large as 10(11) - 10(12) M-circle dot, the AGN emission, with a range of luminosities comparable to those of the most luminous QSOs known, require that either Hot DOGs have black hole masses significantly in excess of the local relations, or that they radiate significantly above the Eddington limit, at a level at least 10 times more efficiently than z similar to 2 QSOs. We show that, while rare, the number density of Hot DOGs is comparable to that of equally luminous but unobscured (i.e., Type 1) QSOs. This may be at odds with the trend suggested at lower luminosities for the fraction of obscured AGNs to decrease with increasing luminosity. That trend may, instead, reverse at higher luminosities. Alternatively, Hot DOGs may not be the torus-obscured counterparts of the known optically selected, largely unobscured, hyper-luminous QSOs, and may represent a new component of the galaxy evolution paradigm. Finally, we discuss the environments of Hot DOGs and statistically show that these objects are in regions as dense as those of known high-redshift protoclusters.
Narrow-band imaging of the rest-frame Lyman continuum (LyC) of galaxies at z 3.1 has produced a large number of candidate LyC-emitting galaxies. These samples are contaminated by galaxies at lower redshift. To better understand LyC escape, we need an uncontaminated sample of galaxies that emit strongly in the LyC. Here we present deep Hubble imaging of five bright galaxies at z 3.1 that had previously been identified as candidate LyC-emitters with ground-based images. The WFC3 F336W images probe the LyC of galaxies at z>3.06 and provide an order-of-magnitude increase in spatial resolution over ground-based imaging. The non-ionizing UV images often show multiple galaxies (or components) within 1” of the candidate LyC emission seen from the ground. In each case, only one of the components is emitting light in the F336W filter, which would indicate LyC escape if that component is at z>3.06. We use Keck/NIRSPEC near-IR spectroscopy to measure redshifts of these components to distinguish LyC-emitters from foreground contamination. We find that two candidates are low redshift contaminants, one candidate had a previously misidentified redshift, and the other two cannot be confirmed as LyC-emitters. The level of contamination is consistent with previous estimates. For the galaxies with z>3.06, we derive strong 1 sigma limits on the relative escape fraction between 0.07 and 0.09. We still do not have a sample of definitive LyC-emitters, and a much larger study of low luminosity galaxies is required. The combination of high resolution imaging and deep spectroscopy is critical for distinguishing LyC-emitters from foreground contaminants.
We present JCMT SCUBA-2 850microns submillimetre (submm) observations of 30 mid-infrared (mid-IR) luminous AGN, detected jointly by the WISE all-sky IR survey and the NVSS/FIRST radio survey. These rare sources are selected by their extremely red mid-infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and compact radio counterparts. Further investigations show that they are highly obscured, have abundant warm AGN-heated dust and are thought to be experiencing intense AGN feedback. These galaxies appear to be consistent with an AGN-dominated galaxy, and could be a transient phase of merging galaxies. When comparing the number of submm galaxies (SMGs) detected serendipitously in the surrounding 1.5-arcmin to those in blank-field submm surveys, there is a very significant overdensity, of order 5, but no sign of radial clustering centred at our primary objects. The WISE/radio-selected AGN thus reside in 10-Mpc-scale overdense environments, that could be forming in pre-viralised clusters of galaxies. WISE/radio-selected AGNs appear to be the strongest signposts of high-density regions of active, luminous and dusty galaxies. SCUBA-2 850microns observations indicate that their submm fluxes are low compared to many popular AGN SED templates, hence the WISE/radio-selected AGNs have either less cold and/or more warm dust emission than normally assumed for typical AGN. Most of the targets are not detected, only four targets are detected at SCUBA-2 850microns, and have total IR luminosities >= 10^13 L_solar, if their redshifts are consistent with the subset of the 10 SCUBA-2 undetected targets with known redshifts, z 0.44 - 2.86.
We present 20 WISE-selected galaxies with bolometric luminosities L_bol > 10^14 L_sun, including five with infrared luminosities L_IR = L(rest 8-1000 micron) > 10^14 L_sun. These "extremely luminous infrared galaxies," or ELIRGs, were discovered using the "W1W2-dropout" selection criteria which requires marginal or non-detections at 3.4 and 4.6 micron (W1 and W2, respectively) but strong detections at 12 and 22 micron in the WISE survey. Their spectral energy distributions are dominated by emission at rest-frame 4-10 micron, suggesting that hot dust with T_d ~ 450K is responsible for the high luminosities. These galaxies are likely powered by highly obscured AGNs, and there is no evidence suggesting these systems are beamed or lensed. We compare this WISE-selected sample with 116 optically selected quasars that reach the same L_bol level, corresponding to the most luminous unobscured quasars in the literature. We find that the rest-frame 5.8 and 7.8 micron luminosities of the WISE-selected ELIRGs can be 30-80% higher than that of the unobscured quasars. The existence of AGNs with L_bol > 10^14 L_sun at z > 3 suggests that these supermassive black holes are born with large mass, or have very rapid mass assembly. For black hole seed masses ~ 10^3 M_sun, either sustained super-Eddington accretion is needed, or the radiative efficiency must be <15%, implying a black hole with slow spin, possibly due to chaotic accretion.
In the published version of this paper, Roberto Assef was mistakenly affiliated with the Division of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Los Angeles. This is incorrect. Dr. Assef's affiliation correctly appears in this erratum as the Nucleo de Astronoma de la Facultad de Ingeniera, Universidad Diego Portales, Av. Ejercito 441, Santiago, Chile. IOP Publishing sincerely regrets this error.
We compare the morphologies of a sample of 20 luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) from the Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey (GOALS) in the FUV, B, I, and H bands, using the Gini (G) and M-20 parameters to quantitatively estimate the distribution and concentration of flux as a function of wavelength. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images provide an average spatial resolution of similar to 80 pc. While our LIRGs can be reliably classified as mergers across the entire range of wavelengths studied here, there is a clear shift toward more negative M-20 (more bulge-dominated) and a less significant decrease in G values at longer wavelengths. We find no correlation between the derived FUV G-M-20 parameters and the global measures of the IR to FUV flux ratio (IRX). Given the fine resolution in our HST data, this suggests either that the UV morphology and IRX are correlated on very small scales, or that the regions emitting the bulk of the IR emission emit almost no FUV light. We use our multi-wavelength data to simulate how merging LIRGs would appear from z similar to 0.5-3 in deep optical and near-infrared images such as the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, and use these simulations to measure the G-M-20 at these redshifts. Our simulations indicate a noticeable decrease in G, which flattens at z >= 2 by as much as 40%, resulting in mis-classifying our LIRGs as disk-like, even in the rest-frame FUV. The higher redshift values of M-20 for the GOALS sources do not appear to change more than about 10% from the values at z similar to 0. The change in G-M-20 is caused by the surface brightness dimming of extended tidal features and asymmetries, and also the decreased spatial resolution which reduced the number of individual clumps identified. This effect, seen as early as z similar to 0.5, could easily lead to an underestimate of the number of merging galaxies at high-redshift in the rest-frame FUV.
We present SCUBA-2 (Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array) 850 mu m submillimetre (submm) observations of the fields of 10 dusty, luminous galaxies at z similar to 1.7-4.6, detected at 12 and/or 22 mu m by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) all-sky survey, but faint or undetected at 3.4 and 4.6 mu m; dubbed hot, dust-obscured galaxies (Hot DOGs). The six detected targets all have total infrared luminosities greater than 10(13) L-aS (TM), with one greater than 10(14) L-aS (TM). Their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) are very blue from mid-infrared to submm wavelengths and not well fitted by standard active galactic nuclei (AGN) SED templates, without adding extra dust extinction to fit the WISE 3.4 and 4.6 mu m data. The SCUBA-2 850 mu m observations confirm that the Hot DOGs have less cold and/or more warm dust emission than standard AGN templates, and limit an underlying extended spiral or ULIRG-type galaxy to contribute less than about 2 or 55 per cent of the typical total Hot DOG IR luminosity, respectively. The two most distant and luminous targets have similar observed submm to mid-infrared ratios to the rest, and thus appear to have even hotter SEDs. The number of serendipitous submm galaxies detected in the 1.5-arcmin-radius SCUBA-2 850 mu m maps indicates there is a significant overdensity of serendipitous sources around Hot DOGs. These submm observations confirm that the WISE-selected ultraluminous galaxies have very blue mid-infrared to submm SEDs, suggesting that they contain very powerful AGN, and are apparently located in unusual arcmin-scale overdensities of very luminous dusty galaxies.