The environments of hyperluminous infrared galaxies at 0.44 < z < 1.55

Farrah, D.; Geach, J.; Fox, M.; Serjeant, S.; Oliver, S.; Verma, A.; Kaviani, A. and Rowan-Robinson, M. (2004). The environments of hyperluminous infrared galaxies at 0.44 < z < 1.55. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 349(2) pp. 518–526.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07515.x

URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0312215

Abstract

We present deep wide-field Ks-band observations of six Hyperluminous Infrared Galaxies (HLIRGs) spanning a redshift range 0.44 < z < 1.55. The sample resides in a wide variety of environments, from the field to Abell 2 clusters, with a mean galaxy-HLIRG clustering amplitude of <Bgh>= 190 +/- 45 Mpc1.77. The range in environments, and the mean clustering level, are both greater than those seen in local IR-luminous galaxies, from which we infer that the range of galaxy evolution processes driving IR-luminous galaxy evolution at z > 0.5 is greater than locally, and includes mergers between gas-rich spiral galaxies in the field, but also includes encounters in clusters and hierarchical build-up. The similarity in the range of environments and mean clustering amplitude between our sample and QSOs over a similar redshift range is consistent with the interpretation where evolutionary connections between IR-luminous galaxies and QSOs are stronger at z > 0.5 than locally, and that, at these redshifts, the processes that drive QSO evolution are similar to those that drive IR-luminous galaxy evolution. From comparison of the HLIRG and QSO host galaxies we further postulate that a larger fraction of IR-luminous galaxies pass through an optical QSO stage at z > 0.5 than locally.

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