The Spectroscopic Redshift of an Extremely Red Object and the Nature of the Very Red Galaxy Population

Details The Spectroscopic Redshift of an Extremely Red Object and the Nature of the Very Red Galaxy Population The Spectroscopic Redshift of an Extremely Red Object and the Nature of the Very Red Galaxy Population

1996-06-02

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9605203v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Uu-encoded compressed gzip tarfile containing postscript files of 15-page paper and 5 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ

Scientific paper

10.1086/178000

Infrared surveys have discovered a significant population of bright (K<19) extremely red (R-K>6) objects. Little is known about the properties of these objects on account of their optical faintness (R>24). Here, we report deep infrared imaging and spectroscopy of one of the extremely red objects (EROs) discovered by Hu \& Ridgway (1994) in the field of the z=3.79 quasar PC1643+4631A. The infrared images were obtained in 0.5" seeing, and show that the object (denoted HR10) is not a dynamically relaxed elliptical galaxy dominated by an old stellar population as was previously suspected, but instead has an asymmetric morphology suggestive of either a disk or an interacting system. The infrared spectrum of HR10 shows a single, possibly broad emission feature at 1.60um which we identify as Halpha+[NII] at z=1.44. The luminosity and width of this emission line indicates either intense star formation (about 20h^{-2} solar masses/yr) or the presence of an active nucleus. Based on the rest frame UV-optical spectral energy distribution, the luminosity of HR10 is estimated to be 3 to 8 L*. The colors of HR10 are unusually red for a galaxy (at z=1.44 the age of HR10 is at most 2 to 8 Gyr depending on cosmology), and indicate that HR10 is dusty. HR10 is detected weakly at radio wavelengths; this is consistent with either the starburst or AGN hypothesis. If HR10 is a typical representative of its class, EROs are numerous and represent a significant component of the luminous objects in the Universe at z approx 1.5.

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