CO, H2O, H2O+ line and dust emission in a z = 3.63 strongly lensed starburst merger at sub-kiloparsec scales

1 Mar 2019  ·  C. Yang, R. Gavazzi, A. Beelen, P. Cox, A. Omont, M. D. Lehnert, Y. Gao, R. J. Ivison, A. M. Swinbank, L. Barcos-Muñoz, R. Neri, A. Cooray, S. Dye, S. Eales, H. Fu, E. González-Alfonso, E. Ibar, M. J. Michałowski, H. Nayyeri, M. Negrello, J. Nightingale, I. Pérez-Fournon, D. A. Riechers, I. Smail, P. van der Werf ·

Using ALMA, we report high angular-resolution observations of the redshift z=3.63 galaxy, G09v1.97, one of the most luminous strongly lensed galaxies discovered by the H-ATLAS survey. We present 0"2-0"4 resolution images of the rest-frame 188 and 419$\mu$m dust continuum and the CO(6-5), H2O(211-202) and J=2 H2O+ line emission. We also report the detection of H$_2^{18}$O in this source. The dust continuum and molecular gas emission are resolved into a nearly complete ~1"5 diameter Einstein ring plus a weaker image in the center, which is caused by a special dual deflector lensing configuration. The observed line profiles of the CO, H2O and H2O+ lines are strikingly similar. In the source plane, we reconstruct the dust continuum images and the spectral cubes of the line emission at sub-kpc scales. The reconstructed dust emission in the source plane is dominated by a compact disk with an effective radius of 0.7kpc plus an overlapping extended disk with a radius twice as large. While the average magnification for the dust continuum is $\mu$~10-11, the magnification of the line emission varies 5 to 22 across different velocity components. The emission lines have similar spatial and kinematic distributions. The molecular gas and dust content reveal that G09v1.97 is a gas-rich major merger in its pre-coalescence phase. Both of the merging companions are intrinsically ULIRGs with LIR reaching $\gtrsim 4\times10^{12}L_\odot$, and the total LIR of G09v1.97 is $1.4\times10^{13}L_\odot$. The approaching southern galaxy shows no obvious kinematic structure with a semi-major half-light radius a_s=0.4kpc, while the receding galaxy resembles an a_s=1.2kpc rotating disk. The two galaxies are separated by a projected distance of 1.3kpc, bridged by weak line emission that is co-spatially located with the cold-dust-emission peak, suggesting a large amount of cold ISM in the interacting region. (abridged)

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Astrophysics of Galaxies